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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Chap. -. Copyright No...— 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



REV. DR. MILLER'S BOOKS. 



SILENT TIMES. 

MAKING THE MOST OF LIFE. 

THE EVERY DAY OF LIFE. 

THE BUILDING OF CHARACTER. 

THINGS TO LIVE FOR. 

THE STORY OF A BUSY LIFE. 

PERSONAL FRIENDSHIPS OF JESUS. 

THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

DR. MILLER'S YEAR BOOK. 

GLIMPSES THROUGH LIFE'S WINDOWS. 

THE HIDDEN LIFE. 

YOUNG PEOPLES PROBLEMS. 



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GIRLS; FAULTS AND IDEALS. 
YOUNG MEN ; FAULTS AND IDEALS. 
SECRETS OF HAPPY HOME LIFE. 
THE BLESSING OF CHEERFULNESS. 
A GENTLE HEART. 
BY THE STILL WATERS. 
THE MARRIAGE ALTAR. 
THE SECRET OF GLADNESS. 



THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY, 

NEW YORK AND BOSTON. 



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THE HIDDEN LIFE 



BY 
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J. R. MILLER, D.D, 



EVERYDAY OF LIFE," BUILDING OF 
CHARACTER," ETC. 



Out of the dark must grow, 
Sooner or later ^ -whatever is fairP 



NEW AND ENLARGED EDITION 



NEW YORK: 46 East 14TH Street 

THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY 

BOSTON : 100 Purchase Street 



A 







Copyright, 1895 and 1898, 
By Thomas Y. Crowell & Company. 







RECEIVED. 



MTl^o^ 



SIXTH THOUSAND. 



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The chapters in this little volume may have 
their message to some who are striving to 
live near the heart of Christ. It is the hidden 
life that makes the character. What we are 
in the depths of our being, where no human 
eye can penetrate, that we are actually, as 
God sees us. Then this inner life will ulti- 
mately work its way through to the surface, 
transforming the character into its own qual- 
ity. Nothing can be more important, there- 
fore, than that the hidden life be true, pure, 

beautiful, and Christlike. 

J. R. M. 
Philadelphia, 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. The Hidden Life i 

II. The Outer and Inner Life 14 

III. Satisfaction — not Repression .... 26 

IV. Comfort in Christ's Knowledge of Us . 40 
V. A Condition of Divine Blessing .... 53 

VI. Secrets of Contentment 66 

VII. Our Unanswered Prayers 79 

VIII. For the People Who Fail 91 

IX. The Sin of not Praying for Others . . 103 

X. On Growing Old Successfully .... 114 

XI. As Lights in the World 127 

XII. The Critical Habit 138 

XIII. The Other Side 148 

XIV. The Hopefulness of Jesus 157 

XV. The Value of the Reserve ..... 167 

XVI. The Blessing of a Thorn 176 

XVII. Near the Heart of Christ 186 

XVIII. The Life that Now is 197 



THE HIDDEN LIFE. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE HIDDEN LIFE. 

" We live together years and years, 
And leave unsounded still 

Each other's springs of hopes and fears, 
Each other's depths of will ; 

We Uve together day by day, 
And some chance look or tone 

Lights up with instantaneous ray 
An inner world unknown." 

In a sense, all life is hidden. The blood 
courses through the veins as the heart keeps 
throbbing, throbbing, day and night. You can 
lay your finger on your wrist and feel the 
pulsings. The lungs also continue breathing, 
inhaling, exhaling, without pause, from in- 
fancy's first gasp until at last watching friends 
say, ** He is gone ! " Pulsings, breathings — 
ye3 ; but have you found the life ? What 



2 THE HIDDEN LIFE, 

is it that keeps the heart throbbing and the 
lungs respiring ? " Life/' you say. Yes, but 
what is life ? 

Take the mind. It is very active. One 
man thinks, and writes beautiful poems or 
charming stories. Another thinks, and puts 
marvellous visions on canvas, or throws great 
bridges over rivers, or erects a noble cathedral. 
But who ever saw the processes of thought.^ 
Mental life is hidden. 

Take heart-life — the life you lived yester- 
day, with its hopes and fears, its joys and 
sorrows, its pleasures and pains, its cares and 
its affections, its thousand varying experi- 
ences. Does the world know what is going 
on in your breast to-day, any day } People 
see the smile or the shadow that flits across 
your face, but they do not see the emotion 
which produced it. Even to your closest bosom 
friend your life is unrevealed, cannot be re- 
vealed. Says Keble : — 

** Not even the tenderest heart and next our own 
Knows half the reasons why we smile or sigh." 

Take spiritual life. We see the effects of 



THE HIDDEN LIFE, 3 

the Holy Spirit's work — new dispositions, new 
conduct, new character ; but the divine spark 
of life we cannot see as it comes down from 
above. It is secret, hidden. One day you are 
sad, disheartened ; and, taking up your Bible, 
you find a sweet word of promise, a reveal- 
ing of God's love, and into your heart there 
comes a strange peace. You are in sorrow. 
A friend sits down beside you, and speaks a 
few words of strong comfort. You are calmed 
and quieted. Yet no one sees any of these 
processes. They are hidden, secret. 

There is an inspired word which says, ** Your 
life is hid with Christ in God." The thought 
is wonderfully bold and strong. Christ is the 
source of the Christian's life. Christ is in 
heaven with God, in God, wrapped up in the 
very glory of divinity. Hence the Christian's 
life is with Christ in God. Its source is 
thus in the very heart of God. 

Outside an old garden wall hung a great 
branch covered with purple clusters of grapes. 
No root was visible anywhere; and those who 
saw it wondered how the vine grew, how its 



4 THE HIDDEN LIFE. 

life was nourished, where its roots clung. It 
was then discovered that the great vine from 
which this branch sprung grew inside the gar- 
den. There it had an immense root, with 
a stem like the trunk of a tree. This one 
branch had pushed out over the wall and hung 
there, bearing in the mellow autumn its clus- 
ters of luscious fruit. 

Every Christian life in this world is a branch 
of a great vine which grows in heaven — a 
branch growing outside the wall. **Your life 
is hid with Christ in God." We have heaven's 
life in us in this world. The fruits that grow 
upon our life are heavenly fruits. Jesus spoke 
of giving his own peace to his disciples. He 
prayed that they might have his joy fulfilled 
in themselves. We read too that love, joy, 
peace, long-suffering, gentleness, meekness, are 
fruits of the Holy Spirit. Thus in our human 
experience in this world we are drawing our life 
and its support from the hidden source of life 
in the heart of God. This assures us of its 
security. It is beyond the reach of earthly 
harm. Herein, too, lies the secret of the quiet 



THE HIDDEA' LIFE. 5 

peace which we find so often in Christian 
sufferers. In all their pain they are sustained 
by some hidden strength which the world can- 
not understand. They are drawing their life 
from a source which no earthly experience 
can reach or affect. 

** Oh ! there are some who, while on earth they dwell, 
And seem to differ little from the throng, 
Already to the heavenly choir belong. 
And even hear the same sweet anthem swell. 

They joy, at times, with joy unspeakable. 

Pouring to him they love their heartfelt song; 
While to behold him face to face they long, 

As the parched traveller for the cooling well. 

Ask you how such from others may be known? 
Mark those whose look is calm, their brow serene, 
Gentle their words, love breathing in each tone, 

Scattering rich blessings all around unseen. 

They draw each hour, from living founts above. 

The streams they pour around of peace and joy and love." 

One writes of watching an old tree in the 
autumn, as the leaves were touched by the 
frosts and fell off when the rough wind blew. 
As the tree at last became bare he saw a bird's 
nest on one of the branches. Through the 



6 THE HIDDEN LIFE, 

summer days the nest had been hidden be- 
neath the thick foliage, but the blasts of win- 
ter which swept away the leaves uncovered this 
home and shelter of the birds. So, ofttimes, 
is it in the history of God's children. In their 
prosperity we see not their refuge, which is 
hidden and secret — hidden beneath the leaves 
of worldly prosperity. But when adversity 
comes, taking away earthly beauty, stripping 
off the bright foliage, their true and eternal 
refuge in God is disclosed. The storms of 
earth only drive them back into God's bosom. 

We say a certain person's beauty has been 
wasted by sickness. One came to me whom I 
had not seen before for five years. Then a 
dark tragedy had just darkened her home, and 
I went to try to give a little comfort. Until 
that day her face had been beautiful with all 
the freshness of youth. But these five years 
since had been like twenty years in her life. 
The beauty was now faded ; how could it have 
been otherwise, with the broken heart she 
brought out of those terrible days } Yet a 
few minutes* conversation showed me that in 



THE HIDDEN LIEE, 7 

all the wasting of physical beauty her spirit- 
ual loveliness had not been marred. She had 
kept near the heart of Christ in all the bitter 
anguish, and the joy and peace of her inner 
life had not failed. Beauty of the face is only 
external, and is transient. Any accident may 
mar it. But beauty of the soul is spiritual 
and imperishable. It abides even in the de- 
struction of the body. 

There is mystery in this hidden life which 
is in every Christian. It has a strange power 
of recognition. When two Christians meet, 
though utter strangers heretofore, there is 
something that reveals them to each other. 
The same life pulses in their hearts. They 
have the same hopes, the same joys, the same 
Christ, the same purpose in living, the same 
heaven. The world has nothing in common 
with Christians, but all who love Christ are 
members of one family. 

** I walk along the crowded streets, and mark 
The eager, anxious faces, 
Wondering what this man seeks", what that heart craves, 
In earthly places. 



8 THE HIDDEN LTEE, 

Do I want anything that they are wanting? 

Is each of them my brother? 
Could we hold fellowship, speak heart to heart, 

Each to the other? 

Nay, but I know not ! only this I know, 

That sometimes, merely crossing 
Another's path, where life's tumultuous waves 

Are ever tossing — 

He, as he passes, whispers in mine ear 

One magic sentence only, 
And in the awful loneliness of crowds 

I am not lonely. 

Ah, what a life is theirs who live in Christ ! 

How vast the mystery, 
Reaching in height to heaven, and in its depth 

The unfathomed sea!" 

The Christian's life is hidden also in the 
sense that its true and full glory is concealed 
in this world, and will not appear until it 
enters the heavenly life. Only the bud is 
seen as yet ; by and by the flower will burst 
into rich bloom. The best of every Chris- 
tian's life remains unrevealed on the earth. 
We fail to realize even our own best inten- 
tions. You did not live yesterday as you 



THE HIDDEN LIFE. 9 

meant to live when you went out in the 
morning. No artist ever puts on his canvas 
all the beauty of his mental vision. No singer 
ever gets into the song he sings all the music 
of his soul. No saintly Christian ever trans- 
lates into disposition and conduct all the spirit- 
ual loveliness that glows in his ideal. Our 
hands are too clumsy and unskilful to express 
the best things of our mind and heart in 
word or act or character. We see the good, 
but cannot do it in more than a mere frag- 
mentary way. Yet the visions of beauty 
which we have in mere flashes and glimmer- 
ings are hints of divine revealings that are 
yet to be made, and of the wondrous possi- 
bilities which lie in the hidden depths of our 
nature, some day to be brought out. 

The sea covers great fields of concealed 
splendors. Now and then a storm stirs its 
depths, and washes up a few brilliant shells or 
pebbles, which shine like fragments broken 
from heaven's walls. Yet these few stones 
or shells are only specimens of millions more, 
even more brilliant, that are buried in the 



lO THE HIDDEN LIFE, 

ocean depths. So there come out here and 
there, in a human life, in times of special ex- 
altation, glimpses of something rarely beautiful 
— an act, a word, a self-denial, a disposition, 
the revealing of some noble quality or some 
marvellous power or measure of love ; and we 
say as we see it, **That is like Christ. That 
is a gleam of heavenly life. That is a frag- 
ment of divinity." But that flashing gleam of 
character, that glimmering of Christlikeness, 
that act which seems too pure for earth, is 
only a hint of the infinite possibilities of each 
human soul. Hidden in the depths of the 
nature, under all its faults and imperfections, 
is a life which far surpasses the highest 
things that are reached in this world. The 
love, joy, peace, unselfishness, purity, holi- 
ness, attained in the saintliest experience of 
earthly Christian life, are but divine intima- 
tions of what we shall be when the limiting 
conditions of earth shall have been left be- 
hind. 

There will be a time when all this hidden 
life shall be revealed. The bud shall burst 



THE HIDDEN LIFE, II 

into the rich flower. The gem shall break 
through its rough imprisoning crust, and shine 
in lustrous splendor. The dull character that 
here shows only gleams and flashes of spirit- 
ual beauty, amid manifold defects, flaws, and 
infirmities, shall yet show in its every fea- 
ture the beauty of Christ. The holy thoughts, 
desires, longings, and the hunger after right- 
eousness, which here are hindered, restrained, 
limited, and which fail to take full form 
in life and character, shall yet be wrought 
out in deeds as beautiful and holy as them- 
selves. We shall see Christ, and we shall 
be like him, when we shall see him as he is. 
Some day we shall slip away from the things 
that are familiar to our eyes and hearts here, 
and shall enter into what we call the other life. 
Really, however, it is not another life, but only 
a fuller, deeper revealing of the life we have 
been living in Christ since we first gave our- 
selves to him. The mystery of the Christian's 
life of faith is that it is " hid with Christ in 
God.'' Here we touch but the outer edge of 
it ; in what we call dying we shall press farther 



12 THE HIDDEN LIFE, 

into its blessedness. Here our little barks 
move only along the shore ; by and by we shall 
sail out into the infinite expanse. There will 
be nothing to dread in the experience. We 
call it death, and we shudder at its mention ; 
but really it is life — fulness of life. To those 
who watch us in departing we shall disappear ; 
but to us the path will be only one of increas- 
ing brightness, as we go on until we enter into 
the presence of Christ. 

" I watched a sail until it dropped from sight 
Over the rounding sea. A gleam of white, 
A last far-flashed farewell; and like to thought 
Slipt out of mind, it vanished and was not. 

Yet, to the helmsman standing at the wheel, 
Broad seas still stretched before the gliding keel. 
Disaster? Change? He left no slightest sign, 
Nor dreamed he of that dim horizon line. 

So may it be, perchance, when down the tide 
Our dear ones vanish. Peacefully they glide 
On level seas, nor mark the unknown bound. 
We call it death — to them 'tis life beyond." 

So will it be when we leave this world. It 



THE HIDDEN LIFE, 1 3 

will not grow dark to our eyes, as we imagine 
it will do, when we enter the valley of shadows. 
We shall pass into fuller light, until we, too, 
are hid with Christ in God, in the glory of eter- 
nal life. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE OUTER AND INNER LIFE. 

« I wait 
Till from my veiled brows shall fall, 

This being's thrall, 
Which keeps me now from knowing all. 
In stormless mornings yet to be, 
I'll pluck from Life's full-fruited tree 
The joys to-day denied to me." 

In every man there are two men. There is 
an outer man, that people can see ; there is an 
inner man, that no human eye can see. The 
outer man may be hurt, wounded, marred, even 
destroyed, while the inner man remains un- 
touched, unharmed, immortal. St. Paul puts 
it thus : " Though our outward man is decay- 
ing, yet our inward man is renewed day by 
day." He is referring to his own sufferings 
as a Christian. His body was hurt by scour- 
gings, by stonings, by exposure. It was worn 
by toil, and by endurance of hunger, of hard- 

14 



THE OUTER AND INNER LIFE, 1 5 

ship. But these things which scarred his 
body, leaving marks upon it, making it prema- 
turely old, had no effect on the inner man. 
His real life was not wounded by persecution. 
It even grew in strength and beauty as the 
outer man decayed. 

There is a quenchless life within our decay- 
ing life. The beating heart, the breathing 
lungs, the wonderful mechanism of the body, 
do not make up the real life. There is some- 
thing in us which thinks, feels, imagines, wills, 
chooses, and loves. The poet lies dead. His 
hand will write no more. But it was not the 
poet*s body that gave to the world the wonder- 
ful thoughts which have so wrought themselves 
into the world's life. The hand now folded 
shaped the lines, but the marvellous power 
which inspired the thoughts in the lines was 
not in the hand. The hand will soon moulder 
in the dust, but the poet is immortal. The 
outward man has perished ; but the inner life 
is beyond the reach of decay, safe in its im- 
mortality. 

The inner spiritual life of a Christian is not 



1 6 THE HIDDEN LIFE, 

subject to the changes that come upon his 
outer life. The body suffers ; but if one is 
living in fellowship with Christ, one's spiritual 
life is untouched by physical sufferings. The 
normal Christian life is one of constant, un- 
checked, uninterrupted progress. Unkindly 
conditions do not stunt it. Misfortunes do not 
mar it. 

The inner growth of a Christian should be 
continuous. The renewal is said to be ** day 
by day.'' No day should be without its line. 
We should count that day lost which records 
no victory over some fault or secret sin, no 
new gain in self-discipline, in the culture of 
the spirit, no enlargement of the power of 
serving, no added feature of likeness to the 
Master. " The inward man is renewed day by 
day." 

This does not mean that all days are alike 
in their gain. There are special dates in every 
spiritual history which are memorable forever 
for their special advance — days when decisive 
battles are fought, when faults are discovered 
and conquered, when new visions of Christ are 



THE OUTER AND INNER LIFE. 1/ 

granted, when the heart receives a new acces- 
sion of divine life, when one is led into a new 
field of service, when a new friend comes into 
the life, when one takes new responsibilities 
or enters into new relations. 

Then there are days in every life when there 
would seem to be no spiritual advancement. 
We all have our discouraged days. We have 
days that are stained by folly, marred by mis- 
takes, blurred and blotted by sin ; and these 
seem to be lost days. There are days when 
we appear to fail in duty or in self-control, or 
in struggle with temptation. The inner man 
would appear to be crippled and hurt in such 
experiences as these ; and the days would seem 
to be idle and useless, without profit or pro- 
gress. We come to the evening with sad con- 
fessions of failure, and with painful regret and 
disheartenment. But even such times as these 
are really gaining times, if we are living near 
the heart of Christ. We are at least learning 
our own weakness and frailty, the folly of self- 
dependence, the feebleness of our own best 
resolves. Ofttimes our defeats prove our great- 



1 8 THE HIDDEN LIFE, 

est blessings. No doubt many of our richest 
gains are made on the very days on which 
we weep most sorely over our mistakes and 
failures. 

Then there are days that are broken by sor- 
row. The lights go out in our sky, and leave 
us in darkness. The friends of many years are 
taken away from us. Prosperity is turned to 
adversity. Misfortune touches our interests. 
Our circumstances become painful. Is not the 
growth of the inner life interrupted by such 
experiences 1 Not if we are truly abiding in 
Christ, and receiving from him the grace he 
has to give. No doubt many of the best, the 
divinest blessings of spiritual life come to us 
on just such days. The photographer takes 
his sensitive plate into a dark place to de- 
velop his picture. Sunlight would mar it. 
God often draws the curtain upon us, and 
in the darkness brings out some rare beauty 
in our life, some delicate feature of his own 
loveliness. 

The teaching of the Scriptures is that, what- 
ever the experience of the outer life, the 



THE OUTER AND INNER LIFE. 1 9 

growth and enrichment of the inner life should 
never be interrupted or hindered. This is the 
divine purpose for us. Provision is made in 
the grace of God for this continuous work. 
We need never be harmed by anything that 
breaks into our life. Indeed, there is nothing 
that touches us in any way that may not be 
made to minister good to us. Woundings of 
the outer life may become pearls in the soul. 
Losses of earthly things may become gains in 
the spiritual realm. Sickness of the body may 
result in new health and increased vigor in the 
inner man. It is the privilege and the duty 
of the child of God to move upward and for- 
ward day by day, whatever the day's experi- 
ence may be. 

This is the meaning of the promises of peace 
which are found so frequently in the Bible. 
We have no assurance of a life without strife, 
trial, trouble, earthly pain, and loss ; but we 
are assured that we may have unbroken peace 
within, while the outer life is thus beset. " In 
the world ye shall have tribulation." "In me 
ye shall have peace." 



20 THE HIDDEN LIFE, 

The blessing of such a life in this world is 
incalculable. It becomes a source of strength, 
of shelter, of comfort, of hope, to many other 
lives. Susan Coolidge writes of one whose 
heart is kindest, and whose life is a perpetual 
benediction : — 

*'0 heart beloved, O kindest heart! 
Balming Hke summer and Uke sun 

The sting of tears, the ache of sorrow, 

The shy, cold hurts which sting and smart, 
The frets and cares which underrun 

The dull day and the dreaded morrow — 
How when thou comest all turns fair ! 
Hard things seem possible to bear, 
Dark things less dark, if thou art there. 

Thou keepest a climate of thine own 
'Mid earth's wild weather and gray skies, 

A soft, still air for human healing, 

A genial, all-embracing zone 

Where frosts smite not, nor winds arise ; 

And past the tempest-storm of feeling 
Each grieved and weak and weary thing, 
Each bird with numbed and frozen wing, 
May sink to rest and learn to sing." 

Then she writes, giving the secret of this 
wondrous power of helpfulness : — 



THE OUTER AND INNER LIFE, 21 

"Like some cathedral stone begirt, 

Which keeps through change of cold and heat 
Still temperature and equal weather, 

Thy sweetness stands, untouched, unhurt, 

By any mortal storms that beat. 
Calm, helpful, undisturbed forever. 

Dear heart, to which we all repair, 

To bask in sunshine and sweet air, 

God bless thee ever, everywhere." 

We can be truest and best blessings to 
others only when we live victoriously our- 
selves. We owe it therefore to the needy, 
sorrowing, tempted world about us, to keep 
our inner life calm, quiet, strong, restful, and 
full of sweet love, in whatsoever outer turbu- 
lence of trial or opposition we must live. The 
only secret is to abide in Christ. 

The lesson has a special application to sick- 
ness. Sickness is common. Not always does 
it prove a means of grace. There are some 
who are not spiritually benefited by it. Yet 
it is the duty and the privilege of every Chris- 
tian so to meet the experience of illness or 
invalidism as ever to grow in it into Christlier 
character. The secret is a living faith in 



22 THE HIDDEN LIFE, 

Christ. Restlessness or distrust will mar the 
divine work that Christ would do in the heart ; 
but quiet submission to the will of God and 
peaceful waiting for him will ensure continual 
renewal of the inner life, even while the outer 
life is being consumed. 

It is well, therefore, that those who are 
called to endure sickness should learn well 
how to relate themselves to it, so as not to 
be harmed by it. Sickness is discouraging. 
It is not easy for one with life broken, unable 
longer to run the race with the swift, to keep 
his spirit glad, cheerful, and wholesome. It 
is hard not to be able to do the heroic things 
which the unquenched spirit longs to do. 
Life seems now to be useless. They appear 
lost days, in which no worthy service can be 
done for Christ. Too often those who are 
called to invalidism lose out of their heart 
the hope, the enthusiasm, the zest of living, 
and become depressed, unhappy, sometimes 
almost despairing. But this is to fail in true 
and noble living. When we cannot change 
our conditions, we must conquer them through 



THE OUTER AND INNER LIFE. 23 

the help of Christ. If we are sick, we would 
better not fret nor chafe. Thereby we shall 
only make our illness worse, retarding our 
recovery, while at the same time we shall 
mar the work of grace going on in our inner 
life. The captive bird that sits on its perch 
and sings is wiser than the bird that flies 
against the wires and tries to get out, only 
bruising its wings in its unavailing efforts. 
The sick-room may be made a holy of holies 
instead of a prison. Then it will be a place 
of blessing. 

The lesson has its application, also, for those 
who are growing old. Old age ought to be 
the most beautiful period of a good life. Yet 
not always is it so. There are elements in 
the experience of old age which make it 
hard to keep the inner life ever in a state of 
renewal. The bodily powers are decaying. 
The senses are growing dull. It is lonely. 
There is in memory a record of empty cribs 
and vacant chairs, of sacred mounds in the 
cemetery. The work of life has dropped 
from the hands. It is not easy to keep the 



24 THE HIDDEN LIFE, 

joy living in the heart in such experiences. 
Yet that is the problem of true Christian liv- 
ing. While the outward man decays, the in- 
ward man should be renewed day by day. 
This is possible, too, as many Christian old 
people have proved. Keeping near the heart 
of Christ is again, as always, the secret. Faith 
gives a new meaning to life. It is seen no 
more in its relation to earth and what is gone, 
but in its relation to immortality and what is 
to come. The Christian old man's best days 
are not behind him, but always before him. 
He is walking, not toward the end, but toward 
the beginning. The dissolving of the earthly 
tabernacle is a pledge that the house not 
made with hands is almost ready. 

The lesson has its application also for death. 
That seems to be the utter destruction of the 
outer man. The body returns to the dust 
whence it came. What of the inner life t 
It only escapes from the walls and fetters 
which have confined it on the earth. It is 
as when one tears a bird's cage apart, and 
the bird, set free, flies away into the heavens. 



THE OUTER AND INNER LIFE, 25 

An old man, nearing his end, spoke of his 
bodily decay, the tokens of the approach of 
death, as the land-birds lighting on the 
shrouds, telling the weary mariner that he 
is nearing the haven. Death is not misfor- 
tune ; it is not the breaking up of life ; it is 
growth, development, the passing into a larger 
phase of life. We need death for life's 
completing. 

"Death is the crown of life; 
Were death denied, poor man would live in vain; 
Were death denied, to live would not be life ; 
Were death denied, e'en fools would wish to die. 
Death wounds to cure; we fall; we rise; we reign; 
Spring from our fetters; hasten to the skies, 
Where blooming Eden withers in our sight. 
Death gives us more than was in Eden lost; 
This king of terrors is the prince of peace." 



CHAPTER III. 

SATISFACTION — NOT REPRESSION. 

"The mighty God! Here shalt thou find thy rest, 
O weary one! There is naught else to know, 
Naught else to seek — here thou may'st cease thy quest. 
Give thyself up. He leads where thou shalt go. 

*' The changeless God ! Into thy troubled life 

Steals strange, sweet peace ; the pride that drove thee on, 
The hot ambition and the selfish strife 

That made thy misery, like mists are gone." 

Thirst is characteristic of humanity. Wher- 
ever you find a human soul you find in it 
longings, desires, yearnings. Then it is only 
commonplace to say that in all this world 
there is nothing to satisfy a human soul. 
There has been no lack of searching for a 
fountain of life whose waters will quench 
human thirst ; but in vain. There is noth- 
ing that has not been tried, and yet always 
the result has been the same : 

" Life's thirst quenches itself 

With draughts which double thirst." 

26 



SA TISFA CTION— NO T REPRESSION, 2/ 

The theory of happiness which Buddhism 
proposes is to tear desire from the soul, and 
to destroy the heart's hunger. But this is 
not possible. A craving repressed, held in 
check, shut up in the heart, is not at rest. 
The desire still lives, though caged, smothered, 
confined. Happiness never can be found in 
this way. 

Christ came to tell us of a way in which 
our soul's thirsts and cravings may all be 
satisfied. Instead of crushing them within 
the heart, he would let them live, and would 
find perfect satisfaction for them. 

These longings within us are not evil in 
themselves. They are the divine qualities in 
our soul crying out for divine nourishment. 
We are not bodies — we are souls, immortal 
souls. We bear the image of God. We be- 
long to heaven. It is no wonder that house 
and furniture and pictures and sumptuous 
fare and rich clothing will not answer our 
higher nature's needs. How could such things 
satisfy an immortal soul ? Imagine an angel 
living in the house of one of our worldly mil- 



28 THE HIDDEN LIFE, 

lionaires, and living just as the millionaire 
lives. How much comfort would he get 
from it all? It is because we have in us 
the divine that earth cannot satisfy us. 

** Thank God for life ; life is not sweet always; 
Hands may he heavy laden, heart care-full, 
Unwelcome nights follow unwelcome days, 
And dreams divine end in awakenings dull; 
Still it is life; and life is cause for praise. 
This ache, this restlessness, this quickening sting 
Prove me no torpid and inanimate thing, — 
Prove me of him who is the life, the spring. 
I am alive, — and that is beautiful.'' 

A traveller tells of holding in his hand the 
egg of a rare East India bird which was so 
near the hatching that the bird inside was 
pecking away at the shell. He could hear it 
struggling to get out. It was shut away in the 
darkness, cramped, confined, but it was not 
content to stay there. It seemed to know that 
there was a larger life for it outside, that on 
wings it might soar away to greet the morning 
light, that it might put on splendors of beauty, 
that it might look on mountains, valleys, and 
rivers, and bathe in the pure air of sunny 
skies. 



SATISFACTION --NOT REPRESSION 29 

This bird in the shell is a picture of the 
higher nature which is within every human 
life. It is not satisfied. It is a prisoner long- 
ing to be liberated. It is conscious of a wider 
freedom, a larger liberty, that is possible to it. 
We are made for communion with God. The 
mission of Christ to us is to bring us out into 
this larger, fuller life. Instead of vainly trying 
to satisfy our spiritual needs and cravings at 
earth's fountains, he leads us to heaven's foun- 
tains. He reveals to us the love of God. He 
tells us that we are God's children, and brings 
us into intimate relations with our Father in 
heaven. He gives us intimations of a future 
for ourselves that is full of blessedness and 
glory. He calls us to this larger life. 

So the hunger for love in our beating heart 
is the prophecy of a satisfaction of love which 
is possible in Christ. The longing for holi- 
ness, for strength, for beauty of character, for 
power of helpfulness, for Christlikeness, is a 
revealing of our capacity for noble living, and 
of the spiritual growth to which we may attain 
and shall attain, unless by unbelief and sin we 



30 THE HIDDEN LIFE, 

stunt, choke, and smother the immortal life 
that is ours as Christians. 

Take another illustration from nature. The 
dragon-fly is born at the bottom of the pond, 
and for a time lives there, a low, meagre form 
of life. It does not know of anything better — 
that there is a higher sphere where insects and 
other creatures have wings, and fly in glorious 
freedom in the sunny air. But one day there 
comes a wondrous change. Tennyson tells the 
story well : — 

** To-day I saw the dragon-fly 
Come from the wells where he did lie. 

An inner impulse rent the veil 

Of his old husk: from head to tail 

Came out clear plates of sapphire mail. 

He dried his wings: like gauze they grew; 
Thro' crofts and pastures wet with dew 
A living flash of light he flew.'* 

This dragon-fly of the darkness and the mire 
now breathes heaven's sweet air. It has 
wings, which unfold under the impulse of the 
new life into which it has emerged, and spread 
themselves out in shining beauty, and the 



SA TISFA CTION— NO T REPRESSION, 3 1 

lovely creature soars aloft. It is dead to its 
old life in the ooze, and lives now in the 
brightness and the fragrance of the fields and 
gardens. 

This, too, is a picture of the new life in 
Christ to which human souls may rise. Satis- 
faction can never be found in mere earthly 
conditions. In these we are like dragon-flies, 
living at the bottom of the pond, while our 
true place is up in the sunny air, with wings 
outspread, soaring in blessed liberty. Thus only 
in this new life can our thirsts be satisfied. 

There are mistaken thoughts of what we 
must do with our cravings and longings. The 
Buddhist says we must crush them. Many 
Christian people have the same thought. They 
suppose that many of their desires and yearn- 
ings are sinful and must be crucified. But 
this is not true. Our longings are parts of 
our greater nature. God has not put a sin- 
gle yearning or desire in us that needs to be 
destroyed. Our passions, appetites, and affec- 
tions are not depraved qualities in us. They 
may become depraved through our efforts to 



32 THE HIDDEN LIFE, 

gratify them in mere earthly or in sinful ways, 
but in themselves they are not evil. They 
belong to our divine likeness, and are all meant 
to be satisfied. But this satisfaction can come 
only in true uses of our powers. 

A man found a wild torrent in the mountain. 
It could work only waste and ruin as it rushed, 
uncontrollable, down the gorge. He built a 
flume for it, and carried its wild floods in quiet 
streams down into the valley, where they 
watered the fields and gardens, gave drink to 
the thirsty, and turned many a wheel of in- 
dustry. That was far better than if he had 
dried up the torrent. It was far better, too, 
than if it had been left to flow on forever with 
destructive force. Now it was flumed and 
made to do good, and make the world richer 
and more beautiful. That is what God wants 
to do with the cravings, the desires, the pas- 
sions, the longings, and all the mighty energies 
of our nature. They are not to be destroyed. 
Yet they are not to be allowed to work waste 
and ruin in efforts to find gratification in 
merely earthly channels, in unbridled license. 



SATISFACTION— NOT REPRESSION, 33 

That is sin's way. Rather, these great forces 
in our nature are to come under the yoke of 
Christ, and are to be led by him into all holy 
service for God and man. 

Years ago there were in southern California 
great stretches of burning plains, covered with 
dry sand, with scarcely a living thing growing 
anywhere upon them. Meanwhile, up in the 
mountains, there were streams of water, pro- 
duced by the melting snows, running to waste, 
ofttimes causing damage as they rushed down 
the gorges. Men saw that if those wasting 
and destructive streams could only be carried 
down into the valleys, and made to distribute 
their waters over the alkaline sands, the desert 
could be changed into a garden. To-day great 
orange orchards grow on what, twenty-five 
years ago, were barren wastes. 

This is an illustration of what the forces of 
human nature, which now in so many lives run 
riot in dissipation, doing harm to others, and 
hurt to God's kingdom, might be trained to do, 
if all their energies were but turned to noble 
and beneficent uses. That is what Christ pro- 



34 THE HIDDEN LIFE. 

poses to do with those who come to him. He 
sets them free, not by unleashing them to live 
without law or control, but by bringing them 
under his own yoke, where in true and holy 
serving and obedience they will not only find 
rest and peace for themselves, but will also 
become means of carrying benediction to 
others. 

In no other way can the longings and crav- 
ings of human hearts find satisfaction. These 
were not made for idle rest, but for health- 
ful activity. The affections can find satisfac- 
tion only in loving, and in loving purely, truly, 
unselfishly. Love is not a sinful passion ; it 
is sinful only when it is perverted from its 
true end and debased, and becomes unholy 
lust. Nor is love an unworthy or an unmanly 
quality. God is love — love is his very nature. 
To live is to love. Loving in its true sense 
is the whole of living. We can never find 
satisfaction until we have learned to love in 
a Christlike way, as Christ loved us, giving 
our life as he did to be consumed in the flame 
of love. 



SATISFACTION— NOT REPRESSION 35 

The mind can never find satisfaction for its 
thirst save in learning. The desire to know 
is part of the divine likeness in us. On all 
sides books are lying open, and we are bidden 
to read. The voices of wisdom are evermore 
speaking in our ears, and we are bidden to 
listen. " He that hath ears to hear, let him 
hear.*' One of the first words the great 
Teacher speaks to those who come to him 
to find rest for their souls is, '^ Learn — learn 
of me.'' Our minds are made to know, and 
they can find rest only through knowing. 
There is no true peace in ignorance. It is 
only an empty and shallow "bliss" that is found 
in not knowing. Our minds are made to think, 
and can be satisfied only in thinking. Satis- 
faction can come to any function of our being 
only when it finds the use for which it was 
made, and devotes itself to that use. 

The spirit can find satisfaction only as it 
attains the character which belongs to it. 
There is a beatitude for hunger and thirst — 
for those who long for righteousness. Such 
thirst is a mark of life. The dead have no 



36 THE HIDDEN LIFE, 

longings, no desires. They are satisfied. 
Wherever there is spiritual life there is un- 
rest, unsatisfaction, a hunger for larger life, 
richer, fuller, holier. Such thirst can never 
find satisfaction save in ever-new attainments 
of holiness, in forgetting the things that are 
behind, and reaching forward to the things that 
are before. Complete satisfying will never 
come until we reach the full stature of Christ, 
until we see him, and are made like him ; 
but in the Christian* life on earth the begin- 
nings of this perfect satisfying are realized. 

So it is with all the powers of our being. 
Longing is a quality of true living, and a mark 
of health. It is the upward looking and striv- 
ing of our nature. We can attain satisfaction 
only as our powers find their right functions 
and their right uses, and train themselves to 
run in the channels in which they were made 
to run. The word of Augustine is true enough 
almost to be an inspired word : ^^ Our souls 
were made for God, and can find no rest until 
they find it in God.'' But not always have 
our life-teachers explained to us the full mean- 



SA TISFA CTION —NOT REPRESSION. 3 7 

ing of this divine truth. Too often they have 
given us only half of it. It is not enough to 
come to Christ, and nestle in his bosom in the 
joy of reconciliation and forgiveness. Some- 
times that is as far as our teachers lead us. 
Satisfaction can never come in inaction, how- 
ever holy the state may be. The powers of 
the life must be disciplined and trained, and 
then led out into active service. They must 
find the use for which they were made. Know- 
ing and doing must go together, or there can 
be no fulness of life, nor any true rest in 
living. 

It is not enough to seek attainments merely 
for the sake of the attainments. That will 
bring no satisfaction. Learning merely to 
know, neither enlarges nor truly enriches 
the mind. It is only when we desire more 
knowledge in order that we may use it in 
living more nobly and in doing greater good to 
others that we are led into deeper peace. Says 
Froude : " The knowledge which man can use 
is the only real knowledge which has life and 
growth in it, and converts itself into practical 



38 THE HIDDEN LIFE. 

power. The rest hangs like mist about the 
brain, or dries like raindrops off the stones/* 
The same rule applies in all our longings. To 
desire to be good merely for the sake of being 
good, to stand up among men in holy beauty 
but with no wish to make one*s goodness a 
power in honoring God and in blessing the 
world, will bring no true and permanent sat- 
isfying. 

After all, satisfaction can come only through 
the consecration of all the powers to God for 
love's service. Deeper amid the laws of our 
immortal being than any of us can ever know 
in this world, lies the must of service. ^^ Ich 
dieuy' I serve. I must serve. '* Not to be min- 
istered unto, but to minister,'* is the divinest 
law of moral and spiritual life ever enunciated 
by any teacher. This is the way, the only way, 
to satisfaction. The powers of the soul must 
be led out in the paths of their own true 
craving, to lay hold upon the things which 
they were made to attain. They must not 
be repressed or destroyed, but must be drawn 
out, directed, disciplined. Then all the life 



SATISFACTION— NOT REPRESSION. 39 

must reach its divine purpose in becoming 
as Christ to the world, living to bless others, 
giving itself in utter abandonment to help save 
the world. 

This is the way, and the only way, to the 
satisfying of human desires. The water that 
Christ gives alone can quench the soul's thirst. 
Only as we return to God, and to the place and 
service for which we were created, can we be 
at peace. Obedience, likeness, service, are the 
keywords of spiritual life. Earthly satisfac- 
tion at the best is incomplete ; but the well 
in the heart in this life springs up into eternal 
life. What we call dying is but entering into 
fulness of life and perfection of blessedness. 



CHAPTER IV. 

COMFORT IN Christ's knowledge of us. 

" Thou knowest, not alone as God, all-knowing ; 

As man, our mortal weakness thou hast proved; 
On earth, with purest sympathies o'erflowing, 
O Saviour, thou hast wept and thou hast loved; 
And love and sorrow still to thee may come 
And find a hiding-place, a rest, a home." 

To many people the thought of Christ's per- 
fect knowledge of them is an unwelcome one. 
It awes them and troubles them. But if we 
are living as we should live, if we are true to 
our purpose and sincere in our striving, the 
consciousness that Christ knows all about us 
should give us great comfort. 

Too often this thought of the divine omni- 
science is presented as an element of terror. 
Children are told that God sees them ; and the 
fact is presented to them as one which should 
inspire dread, and they are made to fear God's 

eye. The words *' Thou God seest me " are 

40 



CHRIST'S KNOWLEDGE OF US, 4 1 

quoted and commented upon as if it had been 
in stern aspect that the Lord appeared to 
Hagar. Really, however, it was of a friendly 
revealing that these words were first used. 
Under God's all-seeing eye was a shelter of 
love for the poor woman. So it is always that 
God looks down upon his children ; his look is 
ever kindly. He is our friend, not our enemy ; 
and his feeling toward us is very gracious and 
loving. The thought of his perfect knowledge 
of us should never be an oppressive one ; and 
it will not be so if we understand even a little 
of his yearning interest in us, and if we have 
even a faint conception of his infinite patience. 
True, our life is full of failures and blem- 
ishes. We mean to be loyal to Christ, but the 
world is hard, and we are very weak. At the 
best, we get only little fragments of the beauty 
of Christ into our character. We are Christ- 
like only in dim, blurred resemblances in our 
disposition and conduct. We intend to be 
gentle and loving ; but we mar our days oft- 
times with unhappy tempers, querulous bicker- 
ings, unseemly complaints, and selfish striv- 



42 THE HIDDEN LIFE. 

ings. We intend to be strong in faith, allow- 
ing nothing to make us fear or doubt ; but our 
trust fails us many times, and we grow fearful 
in life's stress. We mean to be consistent 
Christians, to live blamelessly in this evil 
world ; but our strength is small, and tempta- 
tions are sore ; and where is the day which is 
not marred by failures ? 

When we come into the presence of Christ 
with our broken vows and our stained records, 
what can we say ? Can we look up into his 
blessed face and declare that we love him, 
with the memory of all our faults, inconsisten- 
cies, and failures fresh in mind ? Is not our 
poor Christian life a denial of our fair profes- 
sion ? We might say that we are sorry, and 
will not repeat these sins and follies ; but 
have we not been saying this over and over, 
perhaps for years, and then almost immediately 
repeating the things we deplored and promised 
never to repeat ? 

What shall we do ? If Christ were but a 
man like ourselves, judging of love by its 
deeds, we could not hope for his patient bear- 



CHRIST'S KNOWLEDGE OF US, 43 

ing with US. Men are not so tolerant of our 
failures. They grow weary of our broken 
vows. They do not know our inner life ; they 
cannot see the sincerity which is in our heart 
beneath all that would seem to prove us insin- 
cere. But here it is that we find the comfort 
in Christ — in his perfect knowledge of us. 
He knows not only the sin and wrong that are 
in us, but he knows also whatsoever in us is 
true and sincere. He sees the little true love 
— little, yet true — that there is amid the weak- 
ness, the broken vows, and the sad failures. 

It was in Christ's knowledge of him that 
Peter found his com.fort when, after his de- 
nials, Jesus asked him three times, " Lovest 
thou me } '' What could he say about his love, 
with that sad story of inconsistency so close 
behind him } He could take refuge only in 
the assurance that his Master knew all — what 
was true and sincere, as well as what was so 
false and unworthy. *' Thou knowest all things ; 
thou knowest that I love thee.'' 

We may find comfort in the same conscious- 
ness. If Jesus did not know us perfectly, if 



44 THE HIDDEN LIFE, 

he, like men, judged only from our acts, our 
behavior, then we could not make such an 
appeal. But he sees into our heart. The sin- 
cere love for him which we know we have, in 
spite of all that seems so contradictory of love, 
he sees. So we can ever, with simple confi- 
dence, say, ** Thou knowest," and rest there. 

** I strive, but fail ; oh, why, dear Lord, 
Must this my constant record be? 
Why finds each daily westering sun 
My work for thee but half begun, 
Or done, alas! so selfishly? 

I'm tempted oft, and often yield, 
For Pleasure hath a siren voice; 
She sings my scruples quite away, 
And with her charming roundelay 
Deprives me of the power of choice. 

My faith is strong when skies are bright; 
But sunny days are all too brief. 
VS^hen clouds arise, and sorrows come, 
My lips are sealed, my heart is dumb, 
And full of weary unbelief. 

But this, dear Lord, my comfort is: 
My troubled heart is known to thee; 
Thou knowest that I love thee. Lord; 
And, Saviour mine, I love thy word 
That this shall my salvation be.'' 



CHRIST'S KNOWLEDGE OF US. 45 

There is another phase of the comfort we 
have in Christ's perfect knowledge of us. The 
world is not charitable toward our faults. 
Men are quick to note our inconsistencies. 
They see our faults with unfriendly eye. 
They are not patient with our infirmities. They 
easily doubt our sincerity when we fail to 
live up to our profession. Then sometimes 
men misunderstand us even when in our hearts 
we are really most faithful. Jesus himself 
was continually misjudged and misunderstood. 
Men took his noblest and divinest acts, and 
made them appear unworthy and sometimes 
even disreputable. The disciples must not 
hope to escape the misrepresentation and the 
maligning which the Master himself had to 
endure. There are few good men who are not 
at some time in their life misjudged or falsely 
accused. But in all such experiences we know 
there is One who knows the truth about us, 
who is always charitable in his judgment, who 
never misunderstands or misjudges us. When 
we have sinned and failed, yet knowing in our 
heart that we are repentant and sincere, or 



46 THE HIDDEN LIFE, 

when we are misunderstood or falsely accused, 
we can look up with confidence into Christ's 
face, and say, '' Lord, thou knowest/' There 
is wonderful comfort in such cases in the con- 
sciousness that he understands all. 

This love that is in the heart of Christ is a 
wonderful love. It is a love that never tires 
of us. We are not sure always of such pa- 
tience and endurance in human affection. We 
complain if our friends do not return as deep, 
rich, and constant love as we give them. We 
are hurt at any evidence of the ebbing of love 
in them. Human love is oft-times chilled and 
even repelled by the discovery of things un- 
worthy, traits of character that are not beau- 
tiful, acts that are not right. 

We are not sure always that human friends 
will love us still when they know all about 
us. We could not trust the world with the 
perfect knowledge that Christ has of our real 
inner life. There are records in the secret 
history of most of us that we would not dare 
spread out before the eyes of men. There 
are things in us — jealousies, envyings, self- 



CHRIST'S KNOWLEDGE OF US. 47 

ish desires, earthward turnings, unholy af- 
fections — which we would not feel safe in 
laying bare even to our dearest and most 
patient friends. But Christ knows all. Yet 
we need not be afraid to trust him with all 
the innermost frailties, faults, and failures of 
our life. His love will not be turned back 
by these repulsive things while it finds in us 
even the feeblest true love for him. ** He 
knows all, yet loves us better than he knows.'* 
In one sense it is not easy for Christ to 
save us. We struggle and resist, and there 
is much in us that persistently disputes his 
sway. It was the prayer of a saintly man, 
" Lord, save me in spite of myself." We 
must all be saved, it would seem, if ever, in 
spite of ourselves. St. Paul found a law in 
his members forever opposing the impulses 
of the new nature in him, making him do the 
things he would not. The only way Christ 
can save any of us is by never giving us 
up, never letting go his hold upon us, never 
allowing our stubborn earthward striving to 
drag us out of his hands. 



48 THE HIDDEN LIFE, 

If he ever did grow weary of our persist- 
ent sinning, and were to let us have our own 
way, what would be the result ? Suppose that 
Jesus had let Peter go that night after his 
denial, giving him no further thought, what 
would have become of the poor fisherman ? 
He would have been swept away on the dark 
bosom of sin's floods, and would never have 
seen his Lord's face again. We do not know 
the perils of our own weakness, nor our ca- 
pacity for sinning. 

When the disciples were told by their Lord 
that one of them should betray him, they did 
not begin to suspect one another. Each one 
seemed to be seized with a terrible dread lest 
it might be himself that would do this dread- 
ful thing. Who has not shuddered when 
hearing of the fall of some other person into 
sad, dishonoring sin, feeling that it might 
have been himself .^ Terrible are the possi- 
bilities of sin in human hearts. *^The heart 
is deceitful above all things, and desperately 
wicked ; who can know it } " 

We talk lightly of sin and sin's dangers. 



CHRIST'S KNOWLEDGE OF US, 49 

We speak ofttimes sternly and bitterly of 
those who are overcome in temptation, and 
swept down in its relentless tides. Ofttimes 
we have little charity for those who fall. It 
is because we do not know sin's awful power. 
There is evil enough lurking in the heart of 
the holiest of us, if only it were unleashed, to 
destroy our souls forever. Nothing but the 
mighty power of the grace of God keeps unto 
final salvation those who are preserved blame- 
less through life. We cannot fathom what we 
might have been, abandoned to ourselves to 
drift in the wild floods, had it not been for 
the hand of Christ, who saves us from our 
fatal self. 

It is told of a saintly man, that by his own 
request the only epitaph on his grave was the 
word *' Kept.'' We are all kept, we who do 
not fall away into the darkness of eternal 
death — we are kept by the power of God 
through faith unto salvation. Some people 
speak of the beginning of their Christian 
life, when they decide to follow Christ, as if 
that were all, as if the struggle were all over 



50 THE HIDDEN LIFE. 

when the choice is made. We hear it said 
that certain persons are saved, as if the whole 
of being saved were accomplished in the one 
act of deciding to be a Christian. Really, how- 
ever, the struggle only begins with the conver- 
sion, ending only when the life reaches glory. 

Some speak, too, as if all Christ's work in 
saving us had been done on the cross nineteen 
hundred years ago, in his giving up of himself 
for us. But his actual work in saving us is 
done with us, and in us, one by one, in teach- 
ing us life's lessons, giving us grace to over- 
come in temptation, lifting us up when we have 
fallen, going after us and bringing us back 
when we have wandered away, and keeping us 
from the world's deadly evils. Were it not 
for this patient, never-failing, watchful love 
of Christ, not one of us would ever be saved. 

It is Christ's perfect knowledge of us that 
gives such infinite patience to his love and 
grace. He knows the sincerity that is in us ; 
he sees, too, the possibilities of good that are 
in us — not what we are now, but what we are 
to be when the work in us is finished. 



CHRIST'S KNOWLEDGE OF US. 5 1 

There is a word of St. John's which says, 
*' We shall be like him ; for we shall see him 
as he is." This is a vision of the final outcome 
of Christ's work in saving us. The mother of 
the artist saw in her boy's childish attempts, 
foregleams of genius, and kissed him to en- 
courage him. That kiss made him an artist. 
So the patient, loving Christ sees in our poor 
living, in our yearnings, our human discon- 
tents, our strivings, our hungers, our longings, 
gleams of what we may become ; and it is to 
bring out these possibilities that he deals with 
us in such grace and gentleness. 

So we may trust Christ with the innermost 
things of our life. We need not be afraid, 
however faulty or sinful we know ourselves to 
be, to lay all at his feet in holy confidence. 
Lucy Larcom's lines voice Christian faith's at- 
titude before Christ : 

Lord, I would offer thee 

A heart's untarnished gold; 
And yet how can it be 
When all there is in me 

Is touched with blight and mould ? 



52 THE HIDDEN LIFE. 

I find within no thought 

So holy that it may 
Unshamed to thee be brought, 
Except as it hath caught 

From thee a hallowing ray. 

Yet all I am is thine; 

Through sins and flaws and stains 
I feel thy presence shine. 
Take me, and make divine 

All that uncleansed remains. 

Lord, of thyself not much 
In me canst thou behold, 

And yet thou savest such; 

The magic of thy touch 

Transmutes my dross to gold. 

Contrition thou dost prize 

All sacrifice above. 
Dear Lord, I dare arise 
And look into thine eyes. 

Because I know thy love. 



CHAPTER V. 

A CONDITION OF DIVINE BLESSING. 

Like a blind spinner in the sun 

I tread my days ; 
I know that all the threads will run 

Appointed ways ; 
I know each day will bring its task, 
And, being bUnd, no more I ask. 

Helen Hunt Jackson. 

There is a secret of living which, if people 
knew it, would make all life easier for them. 
It may be stated thus — that as we take up 
any duty and go forward with it, we shall re- 
ceive the strength we need to do it. There 
are several divine promises that give this as- 
surance. One reads, *' As thy days, so shall 
thy strength be.'* This seems to mean that 
the help which God gives varies according to 
the necessity of the particular day. When we 
have abundance of ordinary human strength, 
we do not need so much special divine help, 

53 



54 THE HIDDEN LIFE, 

and God then gives less. Really it is always 
God's strength that we have, whether it is 
what we call natural, or whether it comes in 
a supernatural way. When we have human 
friends about us, with sweet companionships, 
we do not need so much the revealing of the 
divine presence and the companionship of the 
unseen Friend ; but when we lose the human, 
then we need the divine more deeply ; and in 
the loneliness God makes himself known to 
us as never before. So it is in all our expe- 
riences. God fits his blessing to our days. 
When we faint, he increases strength. When 
we are sorrowful, he gives comfort. When we 
are in danger, he grants protection. When 
we are weary, he gives rest. ** As thy days, 
so shall thy strength be." 

Another of the promises reads, " My grace 
is sufficient for thee.'' Every word of this 
assurance shines with radiant light. It is 
Christ's grace that is sufficient. We know 
that he has all divine fulness, and therefore 
we are sure that no human need can ever 
exhaust his power to give help. It is 



A CONDITION OF DIVINE BLESSING. 5 5 

Christ's grace that is sufficient. If it were 
anything else but grace, it might not give us 
such comfort. Grace is undeserved favor, — 
goodness shown to the unworthy. We de- 
serve nothing, for we are all sinners. But it 
is grace that is sufficient for each one — *' for 
thee," the promise runs ; and that means each 
one who reads it or hears it. It is present 
tense, too, — '' is sufficient." Christ is always 
speaking personally to the one who is in any 
need, and saying, ^' My grace is sufficient for 
thee." Then the word ^^ sufficient " is one 
whose meaning expands and amplifies with the 
measure of the need. No necessity is so small 
as not to be included, and none is so great as to 
go beyond the capacity of the blessing that is 
promised. 

There are divine words, also, which imply 
that the supply of blessing that we receive 
will depend upon ourselves. God's people in 
ancient times were commanded to cross the 
Jordan, the promise being that the stream 
would divide for them. Yet the waters would 
not have parted for them if they had not 



56 THE HIDDEN LIFE, 

gone forward in obedience and faith. As a 
matter of fact, it was only when the feet of 
the priests, walking in advance, were wetted 
in the rushing floods, that the stream began 
to sink away. When Jesus was ready to 
send forth his disciples to bear his gospel, 
his command was, *' Go ye into all the world." 
Then came the promise, ^' And lo ! I am 
with you all the days/' The promise is very 
precious, but we cannot separate it from 
the command. We cannot have this blessed 
presence unless we are, in our own way, to 
the measure of our own ability, seeking to 
make disciples of all nations. It is when we 
go out in his name that he will be with 
us. 

This is the unvarying law of spiritual bless- 
ing and good. Life lies before us, with its 
burdens, its duties, its responsibilities, its 
struggles, its perplexities. It does not come 
to us all in one piece. God breaks our years 
into months and weeks and days, and never 
gives us more than just a little at a time — 
never more than we can bear or do for the 



A CONDITION OF DIVINE BLESSING. 57 

day. Then if we take up the present duty or 
burden, we shall always have strength to do it. 
If we have enough of our own natural strength, 
— and that is God's strength too, — he does 
not need to give us special strength ; for why 
should anything so precious as strength be 
wasted ? But if we do not have strength of 
our own sufficient for the work or struggle, 
we need not falter, but should go on, just as 
if we had omnipotence in our arm ; for the 
promise is that if we honor God by obeying 
him, though the task be impossible to our 
ability, he will honor us by giving us all the 
help we need. The river will surely open 
when he has bidden us to cross it, if only 
we move on as if there were no river. The 
bread will surely be given when we enter the 
wilderness, following the divine leading, if 
only we go on as if we had abundance of 
provision. 

But we must not forget that the blessing 
which is promised depends upon our faith 
and obedience. If we do not begin the task 
that seems impossible, if we wait to receive 



58 THE HIDDEN LIFE. 

the help before we will begin it, the help will 
never come. If we do not begin our march 
toward the river, waiting till it opens, it will 
not open at all. If we do not enter upon the 
struggle, waiting for strength to be given for 
the battle before we accept it, we shall never 
get the strength. An old proverb says, '* Get 
thy spindle and thy distaff ready, and God will 
send the flax." Yes ; but he will not send the 
flax unless we get the spindle and the distaff 
ready. We must do our part, thus proving our 
faith, or God will not do what he has promised, 
for his promise is conditional. Another old 
proverb says, ^* For a web begun God sends 
the thread." We must take up the scant 
bundle of threads we have, and begin our 
weaving, confident that the Lord will provide 
threads as we go on, enough to finish the web. 
He will never put his threads into folded, wait- 
ing hands. The best commentary on this prov- 
erb that can be given is a little poem by 
Josephine Pollard, the last she ever wrote : — 

*'*For a web begun God sends the thread.* 
Over and over these words I read; 



A CONDITION OF DIVINE BLESSING. 59 

And I said to myself with an easy air, 
*What need to burden myself with care 

If this be true, 

Or attempt to do ' 

More than my duty? For here is proof 
That we are to hold ourselves aloof 
Until from the Master we receive 
The thread for the web we are to weave ! ' 

So day after day I sat beside 
The loom, as if both my hands were tied, 
With idle shuttle and slackened warp. 
Useless as strings of an untuned harp; 

For I took no part 

With hand or heart 
In the work of the world. To the cry of need. 
The voice of the children, I gave no heed. 

* When the task is ready for me,' I said, 

* God will be sure to supply the thread.' 

Others might go in cellars and slums. 

And weave a web out of scraps and thrums, 

Finding excuse for the daily toil. 

The reckless waste of life's precious oil; 

But as for me, 

I could not see 
How I was to follow them, or believe 
That the needed strength I should receive, 
Unless I waited, howe'er time sped. 
For God to send me the promised thread. 

I had no strength of my own, I knew. 
No wisdom to guide, no skill to do, 



6o THE HIDDEN LIFE. 

And must wait at ease for the word of command, 
For the message I surely should understand, 
Else all in vain 
Were the stress and strain; 
For the thread would break, and the web be spoiled — 
A poor result for the hours I'd toiled; 
And my heart and my conscience would be at strife 
O'er the broken threads of a wasted life. 

But all at once, like a gem exhumed, 
The word * begun ' — by a light illumed — 
From the rest of the text stood boldly out, 
By the finger of God revealed, no doubt; 

And shocked and dazed, 

Ashamed, amazed, 
I saw as I had not seen before, 
The truer meaning the sentence bore. 
And read as Balthasar might have read: 
' For a web begun God sends the thread.' 

The man himself, with his mind and heart. 
Toward the Holy City must make a start. 
Ere he finds in his hands the mystic clew 
That shall lead him life's mazes safely through. 

And if loom and reel 

And spinning-wheel 
Idle and empty stand to-day, 
We must reason give for the long delay, 
Since the voice of the Master has plainly said, 
* For a web begun God sends the thread.' " 

There is a whole sermon in these lines. 
There are thousands of good people who do 



A CONDITION OF DIVINE BLESSING. 6 1 

almost nothing with their life because they are 
waiting for God to send the thread before they 
will begin to weave the web of duty he bids 
them to weave. They say, *^ I want to be 
useful ; I want to do good ; but God has not 
given me anything to work with." Now, the 
truth is, that God has given them enough to 
begin with, and that is all he will give them at 
first. There were only five barley loaves, and 
there were five thousand hungry people. What 
were these among so many } But for the web 
begun God sent the thread that day. There 
was only a little meal in a barrel, and a little 
oil in a cruse, and there were years of famine 
yet to be passed through. But again for the 
web begun God sent the thread. 

The teaching is for us, and it is one of the 
most practical lessons we can learn. Put your 
hands to the tasks that are surely yours, never 
asking whether you are able to do them or 
not, and not waiting for God to provide all 
the strength or all the material you will need, 
before you begin to do them. Whatever is 
your duty must be done, no matter how far 



62 THE HIDDEN LIFE. 

beyond your strength it may be. It is yours 
to begin ; it is God's to help you through ; 
and he will, if you honor him by trusting 
him. 

Those who live lives of great usefulness have 
always begun with the little they had. It grew 
in their hands, until they filled a large sphere 
of usefulness, touching many lives with the 
benediction of their helpfulness. For a web 
begun God sent the thread. 

The same law of human diligence and divine 
blessing prevails in the building up of char- 
acter. Ten lepers cried to Jesus for healing. 
He answered, bidding them go and show them- 
selves to the priest. That was what the law 
required lepers to do after they had been 
cured, when the priest would give them a 
certificate of health and cleanness, permitting 
them to return again to society. These lepers 
were not yet cured. Their bodies showed no 
mark of healing. But they promptly obeyed 
the Master's word; and *'as they went they 
were cleansed.*' . 

There are those who long for a beautiful life, 



A CONDITION OF DIVINE BLESSING, 63 

for a transformed character, but it seems they 
never can attain to such renewal, they are so 
full of faults and blemishes. But if they begin 
to follow Christ, starting with the little frag- 
ment of Christlikeness which their hands can 
pick up, God will help them, and they will 
grow at last into rich beauty of soul. Get the 
victory over the one temptation of the hour, 
and that will be the first thread in a web of 
complete victoriousness. Get one little line of 
loveliness into your disposition, and that will be 
the beginning of a spirit which at last will in- 
clude "whatsoever things are lovely.'* For a 
web begun God will send the thread. 

There is a beautiful Eastern story of a child 
walking beside the sea, who saw a bright 
spangle lying in the sand. She stooped down 
and picked it up, and found it was attached to 
a fine thread of gold. As she drew this out 
of the sand there were other bright spangles 
on it. She drew up the gold thread, and 
wound it about her neck, and around her head 
and her arms and body, until from head to 
foot she was covered with the bright threads 



64 THE HIDDEN LIFE, 

of gold, and sparkled with the brilliance of the 
silver spangles. So it is when we lift out of 
God's word an ornament of beauty to put into 
our life. We find that other fragments of 
loveliness, all bound together on the golden 
chain of love, are attached to the one we have 
taken up. Then as we draw up the chain and 
twine it about our neck, and weave it into a 
web to make a garment for our soul, we find 
that it is endless. Infinite as God himself is 
the abundance of the lovely things that we 
may draw out of the treasury of his grace to 
deck our life with beauty. ** For a web begun 
God sends the thread." 

This same law applies in the learning of all 
life's lessons. The divine teaching is never 
wanting ; but we must ever begin the lesson 
with the little we know. We must take the 
one step that is plain to us, and then God will 
make plain the next step for us, and the next, 
and the next. We must not demand to know 
all the way before we will set out. We must 
trust Christ, and go on, even in the dark. We 
must never falter when there seems to be no 



A CONDITION OF DIVINE BLESSING. 6$ 

path ; as we go on it will open. As we 
do the will of God we shall know the teach- 
ing. When we begin the web, God will 
send the threads to weave it to the beautiful 
ending. 



CHAPTER VI. 

SECRETS OF CONTENTMENT. 

" I am glad to think 
T am not bound to make the world go right, 
But only to discover, and to do with cheerful heart, 
The work that God appoints." 

Some one has said that if men were to be 
saved by contentment, instead of by faith in 
Christ, most people would be lost. Yet con- 
tentment is a duty. It is also possible. There 
was one man at least who said, and said it very 
honestly, '' I have learned in whatsoever state 
I am therein to be content.'* His words have 
special value, too, when we remember in what 
circumstances they were written. They were 
dated in a prison, when the writer was wearing 
a chain. It is easy enough to say such things 
in the summer days of prosperity ; but to say 
them amid trials and adversities requires a real 

experience of victorious living. 

66 



SECRETS OF CONTENTMENT. 6y 

But what did St. Paul mean when he said, 
"I am content"? He certainly did not mean 
that he was satisfied. Contentment is not an 
indolent giving up to circumstances. It does 
not come through the dying out of desire and 
aspiration in the heart. There is a condition 
of mind which some people suppose to be 
devout submission to God's will which is any- 
thing but Christlike. We are to make the 
most of our life. We are not to yield irreso- 
lutely and weakly to everything that opposes 
us. Ofttimes we are to resist and conquer 
what seem to be impossibilities. We are 
never to be satisfied with our attainments, or 
our achievements, however fine they may be. 
Satisfaction is undivine ; it is a mark of death, 
not of life. St. Paul never was satisfied. He 
lived to the very last day of his life looking for- 
ward, and not back — forgetting things behind, 
and stretching forward to things yet before, 
eager to do more and achieve more. When he 
said he had learned to be content, he did not 
mean that he had ceased to aspire and strive. 

The original word, scholars tells us, contains 



68 THE HIDDEN LIFE. 

a fine sense which does not come out in the 
English translation. It means self-sufficing. 
St. Paul, as a Christian man, had in himself all 
that he needed to give him tranquillity and 
peace, and therefore he was not dependent 
upon any external circumstances. Wherever 
he went, there was in him a competence, a 
fountain of supply, a self-sufficing. This is the 
true secret of Christian contentment, wherever 
it is found. We cannot make our own circum- 
stances ; we cannot keep away from our life 
the sickness, the pain, the sorrow, the mis- 
fortune ; yet as Christians we are meant to live 
in any and all experiences in unbroken peace, 
in sweet restfulness of soul. 

How may this unbroken content be ob- 
tained } St. Paul's description of his own life 
gives us a hint as to the way he reached 
it. He says, ** I have learned to be content." 
It is no small comfort to us common people 
to get this from such a man. It tells us that 
even with him it was not always thus ; that 
at first he probably chafed amid discomforts, 
and had to " learn '* to be contented in trial. 



SECRETS OF CONTENTMENT, 69 

It did not come naturally to him, any more 
than it does to the rest of us, to have peace 
in the heart in the time of external strife. 

Nor did this beautiful way of living come 
to him at once, as a divine gift, when he be- 
came a Christian. He was not miraculously 
helped to acquire contentment. It was not a 
special power or grace granted to him as an 
apostle. He tells us plainly in his old age 
that he had *' learned" it. This means that 
he was not always able to say, ** I am con- 
tent in any state.'' This was an attainment 
of his later years ; and he reached it by struggle 
and by discipline, by learning in the school 
of Christ, by experience, just as all of us have 
to learn it, if we ever do, and as any of us 
may learn it if we will. 

Surely every one who desires to grow into 
spiritual beauty should seek to learn this lesson. 
Discontent is a miserable fault. It grieves 
God, for it springs from a want of faith in 
him. It destroys one's own heart -peace, — 
discontented people are always unhappy. It 
disfigures beauty of character. It sours the 



70 THE HIDDEN LIFE, 

temper, ruffles the calm of sweet life, and 
tarnishes the loveliness of the spirit. It even 
works out through the flesh, and spoils the 
beauty of the fairest face. To have a trans- 
figured face, one must have heaven in one's 
heart. Just in proportion as the lesson is 
learned are the features brightened by the 
outshining of the indwelling peace. Besides 
all this, discontent casts shadows on the lives 
of others. One discontented person in a family 
often makes a whole household wretched. If 
not for our own sake, then, we ought at least 
for the sake of our friends to learn to be 
contented. We have no right to cast shadows 
on other lives by our miserable complainings 
and discontents. 

But how can we learn contentment t One 
step toward it is patient submission to un- 
avoidable ills and hardships. No earthly lot 
is perfect. No mortal ever yet in this world 
found a set of circumstances without some 
drawback. Sometimes, however, it lies in our 
power to remove the discomfort. Much of our 
hardship is of our own making. Much of it 



SECRETS OF CONTENTMENT. 7 1 

would require but a little energy on our own 
part to cure it. We surely are very foolish 
if day after day we live on amid ills and frets 
which we might change for comforts if we 
would. All removable troubles we ought there- 
fore to remove. Too many people are indolent 
in resisting hard circumstances and conditions. 
They give up too readily to what they mis- 
call divine providences. Obstacles are not al- 
ways meant to block our way ; oft-times they 
are intended to inspire us to courage and effort, 
and thus to bring out our hidden strength. 
We must not be too quick in submitting 
to hardness, nor too limp in yielding to cir- 
cumstances. Some of the things which we 
find in our way we are to lift out of our 
way. 

But there are trials which we cannot change 
into pleasures, burdens which we cannot lay 
down, crosses which we must continue to carry, 
thorns in the flesh which must remain with 
their rankling pain. When we have such trials, 
why should we not sweetly accept them as 
part of God's best way with us } Discontent 



72 THE HIDDEN LIFE. 

never made a rough path smoother, a heavy 
burden lighter, a bitter cup less bitter, a dark 
way brighter, a sore sorrow less sore. It only 
makes matters worse. One who accepts with 
patience that which he cannot change has 
learned one secret of victorious living. 

** Two men toiled side by side from sun to sun, 
And both were poor; 
Both sat with children, when the day was done, 
About their door. 

One saw the beautiful in crimson cloud 

And shining moon ; 
The other, with his head in sadness bowed. 

Made night of noon. 

One loved each tree and flower and singing bird 

On mount or plain ; 
No music in the soul of one was stirred 
By leaf or rain. 

One saw the good in every fellow-man, 

And hoped the best ; 
The other marvelled at his Master's plan, 

And doubt confessed. 

One, having heaven above and heaven below, 

Was satisfied ; 
The other, discontented, lived in woe, 

And hopeless died." 



SECRETS OF CONTENTMENT. 73 

Another part of the lesson is that we mod- 
erate our desires. ** Having food and raiment/' 
says St. Paul again, *' let us therewith be 
content." Very much of our discontent arises 
from envy of those who seem to be more 
favored than ourselves. Many people lose 
most of the comfort out of their own lot in 
coveting the finer, more luxurious things some 
neighbor has. Yet if they knew the whole 
story of the life they envy for its greater 
prosperity, they probably would not exchange 
for it their own lowlier life, with its homelier 
circumstances. Or if they could make the ex- 
change, it is not likely they would find half so 
much real happiness in the other position as 
they would have enjoyed in their own. Con- 
tentment does not dwell so often in palaces as 
in the homes of the humble. The tall peaks 
rise higher, and are more conspicuous, but the 
winds smite them more fiercely than they do 
the quiet vales. And surely the lot in life 
that God makes for us is always^the best that 
could be made for us for the time. He knows 
better than we do what our true needs are. 



74 THE HIDDEN LIFE, 

The real cause of our discontent is not in our 
circumstances ; if it were, a change of circum- 
stances might cure it. It is in ourselves, and 
wherever we go we shall carry it with us. 
The only cure that will effect anything must 
be the curing of the fever of discontent in us. 

Envious desires for other people's places 
which seem finer than our own, prevent our 
getting the best blessings and good out of 
our own. Trying to grasp the things that 
are beyond our reach, we leave unseen, un- 
appreciated, untouched, and despised the many 
sweet bits of happiness that lie close about 
us. Some one says, "Stretching his hand to 
catch the stars, man forgets the flowers at his 
feet, so beautiful, so fragrant, so multitudi- 
nous, and so various.'' A fine secret of con- 
tentment lies in finding and extracting all 
the pleasure we can get from the things we 
have, the common, every-day things, while we 
enter upon no mad, vain chase after impos- 
sible fancies. In whatever state we are we 
may find therein enough for our need. 

If we would learn the lesson of content- 



SECRETS OF CONTENTMENT. y$ 

ment, we must also train ourselves to live for 
the higher things of life. One of the ancient 
wise men, having learned that a storm had 
destroyed his merchant ships, thus sweeping 
away all his fortune, said, *'It is just as well, 
for now I can give up my mind more fully to 
study/' He had other and higher sources of 
enjoyment than his merchandise, and felt the 
loss of his ships no more than manhood feels 
the loss of childhood's toys. He was but a 
heathen philosopher; we are Christians. He 
had only his studies to occupy his thought 
when his property was gone ; we have all the 
blessed things of God's love. No earthly mis- 
fortune can touch the wealth a Christian holds 
in the divine promises and hopes. 

Just in the measure, therefore, in which we 
learn to live for spiritual and unseen things, 
do we find contentment amid earth's trials and 
losses. If we would live to please God, to 
build up Christilke character in ourselves, and 
to lay up treasure in heaven, we shall not de- 
pend for happiness on the way things go with 
us here, nor on the measure of temporal good 



>j^ THE HIDDEN LIFE. 

we have. The lower desires are crowded out 
by the higher. We can do without child- 
hood's toys when we have manhood's better 
possessions. We need this world less as we 
get more of God and heaven into our hearts. 
There is a modern story of a merchant who 
was devoted to high purposes in life, who was 
determined to be a man free from bondage 
to the lower things. One day a ship of his 
that was coming homeward was delayed. He 
became anxious, and the next day was yet 
more troubled, and the third day still more. 
Then he came to himself, awaking to his true 
condition of bondage to earthly things, and 
said, '' Is it possible that I have come to love 
money for itself, and not for its nobler uses } *' 
Taking the value of the ship and its cargo, he 
gave it to charities, not because he wished to 
be rid of the money, but because only thus 
could he get the conquest over himself, hold- 
ing his love of money under his feet. He was 
learning well one secret of contentment. 

St. Paul knew this secret. He cheerfully 
gave up all that this world had for him. Money 



SECRETS OF CONTENTMENT. 7/ 

had no power over him. He knew how to live 
in plenty ; but he did not fret when want came 
instead. He was content in any trial, because 
earth meant so little and Christ meant so much 
to him. He did not need the things he did 
not have ; he was not made poor by the things 
he lost ; he was not vexed by the sufferings he 
had to endure, because the sources of his life 
were in heaven, and could not be touched by 
earthly experiences of pain or loss. George 
MacDonald's words are very true : " In life, 
troubles will come which look as if they would 
never pass away. The night and the storm 
look as if they would last forever, but the calm 
and the morning cannot be stopped. The 
storm in its very nature is transient. The ef- 
fort of nature, as that of the human heart, ever 
is to return to repose; for God is peace.'* 

** We bless thee for thy peace, O God, 
Deep as the soundless sea, 
Which falls like sunshine on the road 
Of those who trust in thee; 

That peace which suffers and is strong, 

Trusts where it cannot see; 
Deems not the trial way too long. 

But leaves the end with thee." 



78 THE HIDDEN LIFE, 

These are hints of the way we may learn in 
whatsoever state we are, therein to be content. 
Surely the lesson is worth learning ! One year 
of sweet content amid earth's troublous scenes 
is better than a whole lifetime of vexed, rest- 
less discontent. The lesson can be learned, 
too, by any one who is truly Christ's disciple ; 
for did not the Master say, ''Peace I leave with 
you ; my peace I give unto you " } 

The artist painted life as a dark, storm- 
swept sea, covered with wrecks. Then out 
of the midst of the wild waves he made to 
rise a great rock, in a cleft of which, high up, 
amid herbage and flowers, he painted a dove 
sitting quietly on her nest. It is a picture of 
Christian peace in the midst of this world's 
strifes and storms. In the cleft of the Rock 
is the home of content. 



CHAPTER VII. 

OUR UNANSWERED PRAYERS. 

« O tired heart ! 
God knows, 
Not you nor I 
Who reach our hands for gifts 
That wise hands must deny. 

We blunder where we fain would do our best, 

Until a-weary ; then we cry, ' Do thou the rest ! 

And in his hands the tangled threads we place 

Of our poor blind weaving, with a shamed face. 

All trust of ours he sacredly will keep ; 

So, tired heart, God knows ; go thou to work or sleep.'' 

There are times when God seems to be 

silent to us. To our earnest supplications he 

answers not a word. We are told to ask and 

we shall receive — to seek, and we shall find — 

to knock, and it shall be opened unto us. Yet 

there come times when we ask imploringly, 

and seem not to receive ; when, though we 

seek with intense eagerness, we seem not to 

find ; when we knock until our hands are 

bruised and bleeding, and there seems to be 

79 



8o THE HIDDEN LIFE, 

no opening of the door. Sometimes the 
heavens appear to be brass above us as we 
ask, ^^ Is there anywhere an ear to hear our 
pleadings? Is there anywhere a heart to feel 
sympathy with us in our need ? '' 

Nothing is so awful as this silence of God — 
to feel that communication with him is cut off. 
It is a pathetic prayer in which a psalm-writer 
pleads : *' Be not silent to me, lest I become 
like them that go down into the pit." Any- 
thing from God is better than that he be silent 
to us. It would be a sad, dreary, lonely world 
if the atheist's creed were true, — that there 
is no God ; that there is no ear to hear our 
prayer ; that no voice of answering help or love 
or comfort ever comes out of heaven for us. 

Are prayers ever unanswered 1 There are 
many prayers which are answered, although we 
do not know it, and still think them unan- 
swered. The answer is not recognized when it 
comes. This is true of our common mercies 
and favors. We pray every morning, " Give 
us this day our daily bread," and then we 
never think of our three meals each day as 



OUR UNANSWERED PRAYERS. 8 1 

being answers to prayer. We ask God for 
health, for raiment, for the things we need, 
for prosperity in business, for friends ; all 
these things come to us in continuity, without 
break. But do we remember that we prayed 
for them, and that they come from God as 
answers to our requests } 

•The same is true of many of the spiritual 
blessings which we seek. We ask for holi- 
ness. It does not seem to us that we are 
advancing in holiness ; but all the while our 
life is imperceptibly and unconsciously receiv- 
ing more of the mind and spirit of Christ, and 
we are being changed into his image. We 
expect the answer in a marked way, while it 
comes silently, as the dew comes upon the 
drooping flowers and withering leaves. But, 
like the flowers and the leaves, our soul is re- 
freshed and our life is renewed. 

We put our cares into God's hands in 
prayer, and they do not seem to become less. 
We think there has been no answer to our 
supplications. But all the while an unseen 
hand has been quietly shaping, adjusting, and 



82 THE HIDDEN LIFE, 

disentangling for us the complex affairs of our 
life which made us anxious. We are not con- 
scious of it, but our prayers have been receiv- 
ing continual answer in peace and blessing. 

We find ourselves in the midst of circum- 
stances which appear adverse to our happiness 
and good. We seem about to be crushed by 
sorrows, by disappointments, by trials, or by 
antagonisms. We pray to be saved from these 
distressful conditions. No answer seems to 
come. The shadow deepens ; the blows falls. 
We sit in the darkness, and say that God did 
not answer our prayers. We are unaware of 
the blessing that really came to us in the time 
of our pain. The cup was not taken away ; but 
we were secretly strengthened, so that we were 
able to drink it. 

We are very ignorant. We know not how 
to pray as we ought. The thing we ask for is 
not just what we need, although we think it is. 
The thing we really need comes in place of 
what we thought we needed. The prayer 
seems to be unanswered, while in fact it is 
answered in a far better way than if what we 



OUR UNANSWERED PRAYERS, 83 

sought had come instead. We think it is 
more of God's gifts we need ; these do not 
come, but God himself comes into our life in 
new fulness, imparting to us more of his love 
and grace. We have an answer better than 
we sought. The Giver is better than his best 
gifts. 

Thus, there is a large field of praying in 
which answers come, but come unrecognized. 
We have been blessed, although we knew it 
not. We did not perceive the blessing when 
it was given to us. We did not understand 
that the good things we were receiving so 
plentifully were answers to our prayers. We 
thought God was not heeding our requests, 
when really he was giving us abundant an- 
swer every day. 

But there are other prayers that really are 
not answered. God is silent to us when we 
ask. Yet there is a reason for his silence. 
It is better we should not have the things we 
want and plead for. For example, we ask God 
to lift away our burdens. But to do this would 
rob us of blessings which can come to us only 



84 THE HIDDEN LIFE, 

through the bearing of the burden ; and our 
Father loves us too well to give us present 
ease at the cost of future and eternal good. 
There are mistaken notions current about the 
way God promises to help us. People think 
that whenever they have a little trouble to 
endure, a bit of hard path to go over, a load 
to carry, a sorrow to meet, or a trial of any 
kind, all they have to do is to call upon God, 
and he will at once deliver them, take away 
the burden or the sorrow that threatens, free 
them from trial. They think that is what God 
promises to do. They imagine that when any- 
thing goes a little wrong with them, all they 
have to do is to pray, and God will set it right. 
But this is not the manner of God's love. His 
purpose concerning us is not to make things 
easy for us, but to make something of us. 

So when we pray to God to save us from all 
care, to take the struggles out of our life, to 
make the paths mossy, to lift away all loads, 
he simply will not do it. It would be most 
unloving in him to do so. Prayers of this 
kind, therefore, go unanswered. We must 



OUR UNANSWERED PRAYERS. 85 

carry the burden ourselves. God wants us to 
learn life's lessons, and to do this we must be 
left to work out the problems for ourselves. 
There are rich blessings that can be gotten 
only in sorrow. It would be a short-sighted 
love, indeed, that would heed our cries and 
spare us from the sorrow because we cried 
for this, thus depriving us of the wonderful 
blessings which can be gotten only in the sor- 
row. 

A child may indolently shrink from the 
study, the regular hours, . the routine, the 
drudgery, and the discipline of the school, 
begging the parent to let him stay at home 
from school and have an easy time ; but what 
would you think of the father who would 
weakly and softly grant the child's request, re- 
leasing him from the tasks which irk him so ? 
Nothing more unkind could be done. The re- 
sult would be the dwarfing of the child's life for 
all the future. Is God less wisely kind than 
our human fathers t He will not answer pray- 
ers which ask that we may be freed from duty 
or from work, since it is by these very things 



86 THE HIDDEN LIFE, 

we grow. The only true answer in such 
prayers is the non-granting of what we ask. 

Then, there are also selfish prayers that are 
unanswered. Human lives are tied up together. 
It is not enough that any one of us shall think 
only of himself and his own things. Thoughts 
of others must modify all our life. It is pos- 
sible to overlook this in our prayers, and to 
press our own interests and desires to the 
harming of others. God's eye takes in all 
his children, and he plans for the truest 
and best good of each one of them. Our 
selfish prayers, which would work to the in- 
jury of others, he will not answer. This limi- 
tation applies especially to prayers for earthly 
things. We must not pray selfishly even for 
prosperity in business. We must not ask for 
our own comfort and ease, without qualifica- 
tion. Love must come into our praying as 
well as our living. Or if we forget love's 
law, and think only of ourselves in our asking, 
God will not grant us our desires. He thinks 
of all his children, and will not do injury or 
harm to one to gratify another. 



OUR UNANSWERED PRAYERS. 8/ 

These are examples of prayers that are not 
answered. They are not according to God's 
will. They are for things that would not 
prove blessings to us if we were to receive 
them. 

There is yet another class of prayers which 
appear to be unanswered, but whose answer 
is only delayed for wise reasons. Ofttimes 
we are not able at the moment to receive the 
things we ask for. A child in one of the 
lower grades in a school may go to a teacher 
of higher studies, and ask to be taught this 
or that branch. The teacher may be willing 
to impart to the pupil the knowledge of the 
higher study, but the pupil cannot receive 
the knowledge until he has gone through cer- 
tain other studies to prepare him for it. There 
are spiritual qualities for which we may pray 
earnestly, but which can be received only 
after certain discipline. A ripened character 
cannot be gotten by a young Christian merely 
in answer to prayer ; it can be gotten only 
through long experience. 

Or it may be that the things we pray for 



88 THE HIDDEN LIFE, 

cannot be given to us until they have been 
prepared for us. Suppose you were to plant 
a young fruit-tree, and were to begin to pray 
for fruit from its branches ; could your prayer 
be answered at once ? It is thus with many 
things we ask for in our pleading, — they must 
be grown before they can be given to us. God 
delays to answer, that he may give us in the 
end better things than could have been given 
at the beginning. He seems silent to us when 
we plead ; but it is not the silence of indiffer- 
ence, nor the silence of refusal, but the silence 
of love, that really assents to our request, and 
sets about preparing for us the blessings we 
crave. We need only patience to wait our 
Father's time. 

Here it is that ofttimes we fail. We can- 
not wait for God. We think he is indifferent 
to us because he does not instantly give us 
what we crave. We fret and vex ourselves 
over the unanswering of the very prayers which 
God is really answering as speedily as the bless- 
ings can be made ready for us, or as we can 
be made ready to receive them. We should 



OUR UNANSWERED PRAYERS. 89 

teach ourselves to trust our Father in all that 
concerns our prayers, — what he will give, 
what he shall withhold, and the time and the 
manner of his giving. 

These are suggestions concerning what seem 
to be unanswered prayers. The prayers may 
have been answered in ways in which we did 
not recognize our requests. They may be, in- 
deed, unanswered, because to answer them 
would have been unkindness to us, or would 
have wrought hurt to others. Or the answers 
may have been delayed until we are made 
ready to receive them, or while God is pre- 
paring them for us. 

An Eastern story tells of one who was dis- 
couraged because his prayers seemed not to 
be answered. An enemy taunted him, bid- 
ding him call louder ; but a heavenly message 
brought him comfort, assuring him that his 
prayer to God really had the answer in itself. 

*' * Allah, Allah ! ' cried the sick man, racked with pain the 

long night through: 
Till with prayer his heart was tender, till his lips like honey 

grew. 



90 THE HIDDEN LIFE. 

But at morning came the Tempter; said, ' Call louder, 

child of pain ! 
See if Allah ever hear, or answer, ** Here am I'* again.' 

Like a stab, the cruel cavil through his brain and pulses 

went; 
To his heart an icy coldness, to his brain a darkness, sent. 

Then before him stands Elias; says, ' My child ! why thus 

dismayed ? 
Dost repent thy former fervor? Is thy soul of prayer 

afraid ? ' 

* Ah ! ' he cried, * I've called so often ; never heard the 

**Here am I ; " 
And I thought, God will not pity, will not turn on me his 

eye.' 

Then the grave Elias answered, * God said, *^Rise, Elias, 

go,— 
Speak to him, the sorely tempted; lift him from his gulf of 
woe. 

Tell him that his very longing is itself an answering cry; 
That his prayer, * Come, gracious Allah,' is my answer, 
'Here am I.'" 

" Every inmost inspiration is God's angel undefiled; 
And in every * O my Father ! ' slumbers deep a ' Here, my 
child!'" 



CHAPTER VIII. 

FOR THE PEOPLE WHO FAIL. 

" God sets some souls in shade alone ; 
They have no daylight of their own — 
Only in lives of happier ones 
They see the shine of distant suns. 

God knows. Content thee with thy night. 
Thy greater heaven hath grander light. 
To-day is close. The hours are small ; 
Thou sitt'st afar, and hast them all. 

Lose the best joy — that doth but blind; 
Reach forth a larger bliss to find. 
To-day is brief; the inclusive spheres 
Rain raptures of a thousand years." 

It is quite time some strong words should 
be spoken for the people who fail. There are 
enough to sing the praises of those who suc- 
ceed. When a man is valiant, and overcomes 
in the battle, and stands a victor at the close 
of the strife, there are enough to shout the 
huzzas, and to twine the laurel for his brow. 

When a man prospers in business, rising to 

91 



92 THE HIDDEN LIFE, 

wealth and influence, living in splendor, there 
are enough to do homage to his achievements. 
When one has won honor in any calling, attain- 
ing eminence and distinction, as in art or in a 
profession, there is no lack of voices to speak 
commendation. Books are written, telling the 
stories of heroes who won great victories on 
land or sea. Poets weave their verses into 
garlands of honor for those who conquer in 
the world's battles. We have many volumes 
filled with the world's records of men who be- 
came famous, and women who became famous, 
rising from obscurity to greatness. 

All this is well. But who tells the story of 
those who fail ? Who sings the praises of him 
who goes down in the fight } Who tells of the 
heroism of him who is defeated in the battle, 
and falls wounded and overwhelmed? When 
the struggle is over, and the victors come out 
of the smoke and carnage in triumph, there 
is a jubilant shout to greet them ; but who 
lifts up the cheer for the men who fell and 
died on the field } Yet were they any less 
brave than those who came unwounded from 



FOR THE PEOPLE WHO FAIL. 93 

the strife ? Did the honor of the victory be- 
long any less to them than to those who lived 
to hear the shout of conquest ? 

In all departments of life there are a few 
who seem to succeed, while the many seem 
to fail. Have all those who sink down, weary 
and broken-hearted, who fall out of the ranks, 
unable to keep up in the swift march, who 
do not get on in business, whose hopes are 
disappointed, and who drop in the dust of 
defeat, — have all those who seem to fail really 
failed ? 

** While the voice of the world shouts its chorus — its paean 

— for those who have won ; 
While the trumpet is sounding triumphant, and high to the 

breeze and the sun 
Glad banners are waving, hands clapping, and hurrying feet 
Thronging after the laurel-crowned victors, I stand on the 

field of defeat, 
In the shadow with those who are fallen, and wounded and 

dying, and there 
Chant a requiem low, place my hand on their pain-knotted 

brow, breathe a prayer. 
Hold the hand that is helpless, and whisper : * They only the 

victory win 
Who have fought the good fight, and have vanquished the 

demon who tempts us within ; 



94 THE HIDDEN LIFE, 

Who have held to their faith unseduced by the prize that 

the world holds on high ; 
Who have dared for a high cause to suffer, resist, fight, — 

if need be to die.' " 



When a great building is to be erected, deep 
excavations are made, and piles of stones are 
laid down in the darkness, only to be covered 
up and hidden out of sight by the imposing 
superstructure which rises high into the air. 
This foundation work receives no praise. It 
is not even seen by any human eye. It ap- 
pears in a sense to be wasted work ; yet 
we know that without it there would be no 
massive buildings towering in majestic pro- 
portions in the air. So, many men's lives seem 
to be failures, while in reality they have been 
built into the foundations of great temples. 
Their work is covered up and hidden out of 
sight, and makes no show before the world ; 
but without it those who come after them 
could not have achieved the success which 
makes their names bright. 

For a whole generation men are experi- 
menting along some line ; for example, in 



FOR THE PEOPLE WHO FAIL. 95 

electricity. Some of them almost succeed. 
They seem to be on the very edge of achiev- 
ing what they are seeking ; but success per- 
sistently and narrowly eludes them, and they 
die at last, broken-hearted over their failure. 
Then a new man arises, and takes the results 
of their experiments as a starting-point. He 
is successful, and all the world rings with his 
praises ; yet he never could have brought 
the invention to this triumphant issue but for 
the long, patient experimenting of those who 
went before him, toiling, sacrificing — failing. 
Nearly every great discovery or invention that 
has proved a boon to the world, had a long 
history of such effort and failure behind its 
final success. Who will say that the men 
who wrought thus so unselfishly in obscurity, 
and without result or reward, really failed } 
They did their part in preparing the way. 
Their work was essential in its place. Should 
they not share the songs of victory which the 
world sings for the man who at last brings 
the invention to triumphant completion .? 
Recently a man, prospecting in the mining 



96 THE HIDDEN LIFE, 

regions of Arizona, found a remarkable natural 
bridge. It spans a deep canon, forty-five feet 
in width. The bridge is made by a great 
agatized tree that lies across the gorge. Sci- 
entific men say that many ages since this 
tree was prostrated by some terrific storm, 
and fell across the canon. By the eflFects of 
the water and of time, it has passed through 
many stages of mineralization, and is now a 
wonderful tree of solid agate. And there it 
lies, making an agate bridge over which men 
may pass from side to side. This tree seemed 
to be a failure when, that day in its prime, 
it was broken off by the storm and hurled to 
the ground. But, instead of being a failure, 
to what nobler use could it have been put 
than thus to become a bridge of agate, to 
stand for ages, and on which countless human 
feet may walk across the chasm } 

This fallen tree is an illustration of count- 
less human lives which have fallen and seemed 
to fail, but which in time have proved to be 
bridges over which others can walk to honor, 
success, and triumph. We are all daily pass- 



FOR THE PEOPLE WHO FAIL. 97 

ing over bridges built of the toils, sacrifices, 
and failures of those who have gone before 
us. The luxury, ease, and comfort we now 
enjoy cost other men tears, pain, and loss. 
We cross continually to our blessings and 
privileges, our promised lands, our joys, on 
the bridges built for us by those who failed. 

'*And I say again, Count you the cost 
Of this bridge ? To what is it nailed ? 
What are its bulwarks piled high — these 
You cross to the city of ease ? 
Man, I tell you, 'tis built on the failed — 
The fighters who lost. 

Dryshod you reach your promised land now 
On their failure — on those the world railed — 
They the stuff of whom heroes are — 
Who saw its light gleam from valleys afar, 
And fought for it — died for it — failed — 
No failure, I vow." 

Christ himself is the greatest example of 
this truth. His life was a failure as seen 
on the world-side. At three and thirty it was 
all over, the brightest light that ever shone 
on the earth quenched in the darkness of 
the cross. But now it is a bridge of agate, 



98 THE HIDDEN LIFE, 

over which millions are passing from sin to 
holiness, from sorrow to joy, from death to 
life, from earth to heaven. Christ said, *^I 
am the way .... No man cometh unto the 
Father but by me.'' So his failure became 
the saving of the world. It built the bridge 
over the chasm between earth and heaven, 
on which all who are saved pass over. We 
live because he died. 

So in smaller measure is it with thousands 
of human lives. They fail. They sink down 
in the dust and are forgotten. Their names 
are lost in the indistinguishable multitude. 
No fame, no remembrance, is theirs. But 
without them the world would have missed 
a portion of its blessing, and many lives, hon- 
ored now, would have missed their honor. 
Many a man is living to-day in bright happi- 
ness — prosperous, successful, enjoying distinc- 
tion — because his parents toiled, sacrificed, and 
— failed. None of us know what we owe to 
the past, — to those who have gone before us, 
to the lives that sank down in unmarked 
obscurity. They labored, and we are entered 
into their labors. 



FOR THE PEOPLE WHO FAIL. 99 

It is doubtful if any good man can make the 
most possible of his life in a worldly pursuit 
and yet be a loyal Christian. He may have 
brilliant powers, all the qualities that lead to 
success. If he were to devote all his energies 
without reserve to his chosen business, he 
could outstrip all his competitors, and win the 
highest place. But he is a Christian ; and a 
Christian cannot live for this world's ambition 
alone, though he do it honestly and honorably, 
and though the ambition be altogether worthy, 
and yet be altogether faithful to his Master. 
He must serve his fellow-men as he passes 
through life. He must be as Christ to the 
weary and stumbling ones. He must turn 
aside oft-times, like the good Samaritan in his 
journey, to help those who are in need, whose 
cries break upon his ear. He may not press 
on in his ambition, heedless of love's duties. 

Then, while he thus stays his feet to do 
service to those who need sympathy and help, 
his competitors in the race, not troubling them- 
selves to heed the calls of distress about them, 
thinking only of winning the goal, gain upon 



100 THE HIDDEN LIFE, 

him, and pass him by. Men say he is fool- 
ish thus to permit himself to fail through his 
heart's tenderness and sympathy. But that 
is not failure which comes through pausing 
to comfort and bless others. Rather it is 
such ministries as these that alone redeem an 
earthly life from utter failure. The man who 
steels his heart against all appeals for pity and 
help, and goes remorselessly on to the goal 
of his ambition, without turning aside at the 
calls of need, finds no blessing in that which 
he achieves. But he who seeks first the king- 
dom of God, stopping in his busiest days to 
do good, and turning aside from his most ar- 
dent pursuits to minister to human want or 
sorrow, though his hands hold less of this 
world at the end, will be rich in the rewards 
of love's service. 

Not every good man succeeds in worldly 
affairs. Not every true effort that is made 
has apparent success. Sometimes it is by 
failure that a man can do his best. Success 
in the undertaking can come only after many 
have sunk down without attaining. Nearly 



FOR THE PEOPLE WHO FAIL, lOI 

always the first prophets and heralds of a new 
reform must perish in defeat, thus preparing 
the way, building the bridge over the chasm, 
for those who come after them to carry the 
reform to success. But surely it is just as 
glorious to do one's part in the essential pre- 
paratory stages, and then fall without sharing 
the victory, as it is to have one's part at the 
last among the victors. 

We may set it down as an unalterable truth, 
however, that there can be no real failure when 
one is faithful to God and to duty. Sin is 
always a failure. The apparent success that 
men build up through unrighteousness is only 
a gilded picture. It has no foundation, no 
substance. It is an illusion. It will vanish 
in the presence of the divine judgment, as the 
morning mists vanish before the rising sun. 
But whatever men build up in truth and right 
is real as God himself. All truth is part of 
God, and is imperishable. No failure is pos- 
sible when we work with God. '^ He that 
doeth the will of God abideth forever." Noth- 
ing may seem to come from the toil, the sacri- 



I02 THE HIDDEN LIFE. 

fice, and the outpouring of precious life ; but 
sometime, somehow, somewhere, there will be 
a harvest from every sowing. Not one grain 
of the holy seed of love can ever be lost. The 
life may sink away, and seem to have, perished ; 
but from its grave will come an influence which 
will be a blessing in the world. We need not 
care what we do, nor where we go, nor what 
comes of our work, if only we do God's will. 
It is sweet to see the blessing come from our 
serving, to gather the fruit from our sowing, 
to witness the success of our work, if that be 
God's will for us ; but whether we have this 
privilege or not, it is a comfort to know that 
nothing done in truth for God can ever fail, 
and that no service rendered in Christ's name 
can be in vain. 

**I know that love never is wasted, 

Nor truth, nor the breath of a prayer ; 
And the thought that goes forth as a blessing 
Must live as a joy in the air." 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE SIN OF NOT PRAYING FOR OTHERS. 

Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer 
Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice 
Rise like a fountain for me night and day. 
For what are men better than sheep and goats 
That nourish a blind life within the brain, 
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer 
Both for themselves and those who call them friend? 
For so the whole round earth is every way 
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God. 

Tennyson. 

There is a Scripture word which suggests 
to us in a striking way the importance of pray- 
ing for others. Samuel had been set aside by 
the people in their eagerness to have a king. 
For a moment their consciences were awak- 
ened to a sense of their sin ; and they came to 
him, as they had done so often before, with 
a request that he would pray for them. His 
answer was : " God forbid that I should sin 

against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you/' 

103 



104 THE HIDDEN LIFE, 

Perhaps we are not accustomed to think of 
praying for others in just this way, as a duty, 
the omission of which is a sin against God. 
We think of it as a privilege, but scarcely as 
a part of love's solemn duty. We are in 
danger of narrowing our prayers to ourselves 
and our own wants. We think of our own 
sorrows and trials, our own duties, our own 
work, our own spiritual growth, and too often 
do not look out of the window upon our 
friend's rough path or sore struggle. But 
selfishness in praying is one of the worst forms 
of selfishness. If ever love reaches its best 
and purest, it ought to be when we are standing 
before God. 

Or our ceasing to pray for our friends may 
be from want of deep, earnest thought con- 
cerning them. We pray for them when they 
are sick or in sore trouble, but at other times 
we are not impressed with the truth that they 
need our prayers. Their wants or perils are 
not apparent to us. They seem to be happy. 
There is nothing of which we are aware in 
their life that appeals to our sympathy. We 



SIN OF NOT FRAYING FOR OTHERS. I05 

see only the surface, and are oblivious to their 
deeper necessities or dangers. We forget that 
they are souls with immortal needs ; that they 
have enemies whom we cannot see, who are 
seeking their hurt continually ; that in this 
vast, complex life there are a thousand influ- 
ences touching them which tend to work them 
injury ; that only the hand of Christ can safely 
lead them through this perilous life ; that they 
are to live forever, and that they have interests 
which project into eternity. We are apt to 
forget that our bright, happy, gentle, attractive 
friends without Christ are without true hope. 
We need to think of these deeper spiritual 
needs of those about us, lest we cease to pray 
for them, and so sin against God. 

Another reason why some cease to pray for 
their friends is, that answers to prayers already 
offered in their behalf have been so long de- 
layed. There are mothers, for example, who 
for weary years have been pleading for the 
salvation of children who still remain impeni- 
tent. In the unanswering of their supplica- 
tions they lose faith and hope, and their prayer 



I06 THE HIDDEN LIFE, 

« 

languishes. The same is true of other prayers. 
Hearts fail in the long delays. 

But deferred answers should not chill the 
warmth and earnestness of our asking. De- 
lays are not refusals. God has his own time 
and way of granting our requests for others 
as well as for ourselves. There are some 
blessings it takes a great while to prepare. 
They are like fruit which cannot ripen until 
their season comes, and to give them at once 
would only be to put into our hand that 
which is unripe and unwholesome. There are 
purposes which God is working out in our 
friend's life through the sorrow, the loss, or 
the burden, which cannot be completed if our 
prayers are answered at once. It was more 
than twenty years before Jacob saw his prayers 
for his lost boy answered. We should not 
cease to pray because the answer tarries. Per- 
haps the coming of the blessing at last will de- 
pend upon our faithful continuance in prayer. 
If we faint, it will not come. It is a sad thing 
if deferred answers cause any of us to cease 
to pray for a careless friend. That is giving 



SIN OF NOT PRAYING FOR OTHERS. 10/ 

him up ; and when we give him up, and cease 
to make supplication for him, what hope has 
he remaining? There are no other chains to 
bind him about the feet of God. 

Another reason why some persons cease to 
pray for those they have prayed for before, 
is something in these friends, or in their con- 
duct, that has hurt or grieved them. There 
seemed such a reason in Samuel's case. He 
had given all his life to the interests of his 
people. He had spent all his years in serv- 
ing them. It was good service too, — service 
which brought incalculable blessing to the na- 
tion. Yet in his old age, when his hair had 
grown gray, he was set aside by the people 
he had served so loyally and so unselfishly. 
Samuel might have ceased now to pray for 
the people who had proved so ungrateful to 
him, and had treated him so unkindly ; and 
he would have seemed to do right. They did 
not deserve to be longer loved and remem- 
bered in his prayers, he might have argued 
justly. Many men would have grown bitter 
against the people who had so treated them. 



I08 THE HIDDEN LIFE. 

Instead of this, however, Samuel says he will 
not cease to pray for them ; that it would be 
a sin against God for him to do this. No 
wrong treatment of him by them could ab- 
solve him from his duty of praying for them. 
Thus he exemplified the spirit of that love 
which found its complete revealing only in 
Christ. 

Our duty of intercession is not limited to 
those who are kind and faithful to us. Any 
man can pray for those who are generous and 
loyal to him. But the sin of which Samuel 
spoke was ceasing to pray for those who had 
treated him most unworthily. The lesson for 
us is no less wide in its reach. We may not 
strike from our prayer-list those who have 
treated us with injustice or bitterness. Our 
Lord commands us to pray for those who de- 
spitefully use us. We sin against God if we 
cease to pray for the man who has harmed us 
and done us evil. 

Why is it so important that we should pray 
for others t Why is it a sin to cease to pray 
for any ? Why is prayer so important a duty 1 



SIN OF NOT PRAYING FOR OTHERS. IO9 

Have we a real obligation to pray for others? 
Friendship without prayer lacks a vital qual- 
ity. There is no other duty of friendship 
which rests upon us with deeper obligation 
than this of intercession. We know that we 
sin both against God and against our friend 
when we cease to show him kindness in word 
and deed. No kindnesses shown in act are 
so important and so essential a part of friend- 
ship as prayer for our friend. 

"Yes, pray for whom thou lovest; if uncounted wealth 

were thine, 
The treasures of the boundless deep, the riches of the mine, 
Thou couldst not to thy cherished friends a gift so dear 

impart, 
As the earnest benediction of a deeply prayerful heart. 

Seek not the worldling's friendship; it shall droop and 

wane ere long 
In the cold and heartless glitter of the pleasure-loving 

throng; 
But seek the friend who, when thy prayer for him shall 

murmured be, 
Breathes forth in faithful sympathy a fervent prayer for 

thee." 



Samuel said it would be a sin against the 



no THE HIDDEN LIFE. 

Lord for him to cease praying for the people. 
It would be failing in a duty, and that is al- 
ways a sin against God. We are to represent 
God in this world. He never ceases to love 
and care for his children. He is kind to the 
unthankful and the evil. He wants us to have 
the same spirit toward others that he has, — 
to be always interested in them. For us to 
be indifferent to the good of any human being 
is ungodlike. To cease to pray for any one 
is to fail in part of our duty. 

Then, God has ordained that many of his 
blessings shall come to his children through 
prayer. He is ready to bestow upon them 
the favors of his love; but he would be in- 
quired of to do it for them. He says, *'Ask, 
and ye shall receive." That is, the gifts are 
within our reach, but they must be claimed ; 
they wait to be sought. This is true of good 
things, both for ourselves and for others. We 
do not know how much we miss of the grace 
and help and fulness of life which God has 
in store for us, simply because we do not ask 
more largely. When we cease to pray for 



SIN OF NOT PRAYING FOR OTHERS. Ill 

ourselves, or when we ask only little things, 
we impoverish our life. 

The same is true of prayer for others. God 
has blessings manifold for our children, — bless- 
ings which he is eager to put into their lives ; 
but we must ask him for them. If we do not, 
the blessing will not be bestowed, and the re- 
sponsibility for their missing it will be ours. 
We have illustrations of this in the stories of 
Christ's healings. Fathers and mothers came 
with their sick children, and at first they could 
not be cured because the parents had not faith. 
No doubt in many homes to-day children fail 
at least of fullest, richest blessing because of 
their parents' unbelief or small faith. Then, 
what shall we say of the altogether prayerless 
homes, where fathers and mothers love their 
children deeply and tenderly, and yet bow 
no knee in supplication for them 1 What 
a sad, irreparable wrong they inflict upon 
their children's lives ! For the world is very 
full of peril for young lives. We grieve 
when a child dies ; but we should remember 
that it is our living children who are really 



112 THE HIDDEN LIFE. 

in danger, not our dead, who are safe with 
God. 

" Lord, we can trust thee for our holy dead; 

They, underneath the shadow of thy tomb. 

Have entered into peace; with bended head 

We thank thee for their rest, and for our lightened gloom. 

But, Lord, our living ! who on stormy seas 

Of sin and sorrow still are tempest-tost ! 

Our dead have reached their haven; but for these, — 

Teach us to trust thee, Lord, for these, our loved and lost. 

For these we make our passion-prayer at night; 
For these we cry to thee through the long day ! *' 

The lesson is for all as well as for parents. 
Through prayer is God's ordained way of re- 
ceiving blessings. God has comfort for men's 
sorrows ; but you and I who see our friends in 
their grief must reach out our hands, and bring 
down the comfort by our intercession. 

There is a Bible story of a battle between 
the Israelites and the Amalekites. Moses was 
on a hill-top, overlooking the conflict. While 
he held up his hands Israel prevailed ; but 
when his hands grew weary and heavy, and 
sank down, the battle went against Israel. Our 



SIN OF NOT PRAYING FOR OTHERS. II3 

friends are in the valley in sore conflict. While 
our hands are lifted up in intercession they are 
victorious ; but if we cease to pray for them, 
they falter and fail. 

We do not know how much the blessing and 
saving of others depend upon our praying for 
them. We do not know how often men's fail- 
ures, defeats, and falls are due to our having 
ceased to pray for them. We stand between 
God and needy lives, and are bidden to give 
ourselves no rest, but to cry continually to him 
for those about us. The healing of the world 
is in our intercessory prayer. 



CHAPTER X. 

ON GROWING OLD SUCCESSFULLY. 

" Old — are we growing old ? 
Life blooms as we travel on 
Up the hills, into fresh, lovely dawn ; 
We are children who do but begin 
The sweetness of life to win. 
Because heaven is in us, to bud and unfold, 
We are younger for growing old ! " 

A GREAT deal of advice is given to young 
people. Sermons are preached to them. Books 
are written for them, filled with counsels. No 
doubt the young need wise advice, solemn 
preaching, and paternal counsel. The world 
has many dangers for youth. Besides, charac- 
ter is formed into permanence in the early 
days. When this period has been safely passed 
through, guardian angels begin to breath more 
freely. Their solicitude relaxes. 

But youth is not the only stage of life which 

has perils ; each period has its own. A great 

114 



ON GROWING OLD SUCCESSFULLY. II5 

many men break down at mid-life. Many 
whose youth and early manhood gave brightest 
promise fail utterly in some crisis when at 
their very strongest. Not all the wrecks of life 
occur in the early days. A majestic tree fell 
at its prime, — fell on a calm evening, when 
there was scarcely a breath of air stirring. It 
had withstood a century of storms, and now 
was broken off by a zephyr. The secret was 
disclosed in its falling. A boy's hatchet had 
been struck into it when it was a tender sap- 
ling. The wound had been grown over and 
hidden away under exuberant life, but it had 
never healed. There at the heart of the tree it 
stayed, a spot of decay, ever eating a little 
farther and deeper into the trunk, until at last 
the tree was rotted through, and fell of its own 
weight, when it seemed to be at its best. So 
do many lives fall when they seem to be at 
their strongest, because some sin or fault of 
youth has left its wounding and its consequent 
weakness at the heart. For many years it is 
hidden, and life goes on in strength. At last, 
however, its sad work is done, and at his prime 
the man falls. 



Il6 THE HIDDEN LIFE. 

One might suppose, however, that good old 
age, at least, is safe from moral danger. It has 
weathered the storms of many long years. It 
has passed through the experimental stages. 
The passions of youth have been brought 
under masterful control. Life is sobered, quiet, 
steady, strong, with ripened character, tried 
and secure principles, and with rich experience. 
So we congratulate the old man on having got- 
ten well through life, where he can at last enjoy 
the blessings of restful years. 

But really old age has perils of its own, which 
are quite as grave in their way as those of 
youth. Sometimes it does not fulfil the proph- 
ecy and the promise of the earlier years. 
Some men who live nobly and richly until 
they have passed the meridian of their days, 
lose in the beauty and splendor of their char- 
acter, and in the sweetness of their spirit, as 
they move toward the sunset. 

Old age has its temptations and perils. It 
is hard to bear the honors of a good and 
worthy life, and not be spoiled by them, as 
they gather about the head when the years 



ON GROWING OLD SUCCESSFULLY. 11/ 

multiply. Some old men grow vain when 
they hear their names mentioned with honor, 
and when their good deeds are applauded. 
It is hard to keep the heart humble, and the 
life simple and gentle, when one stands amid 
the successes, the achievements, the ripened 
fruits, of many years of struggle, toil, and 
sacrifice, in the days of a prosperous old age. 
Some old men become self-conceited — quite 
too conscious of the good they have done, and 
the honor that gathers about their head. They 
grow garrulous, especially about themselves 
and their own part in the achievements of 
the past. They like to tell the stories of the 
things they have done. 

The ease and freedom from care which 
sometimes come as the fitting reward of a 
life of hardship, self-denial, struggle, and toil, 
do not always prove the most healthful con- 
ditions, or those in which the character 
appears at its best. Some men who were 
splendid in incessant action, when carrying 
heavy loads, meeting large responsibilities, 
and enduring sore trials, are not nearly so 



Il8 THE HIDDEN LIFE. 

noble when they have been compelled to lay 
down their burdens, drop their tasks out of 
their hands, and step out of the crowding, 
surging ranks into the quiet ways of those 
whose great life-work is mainly finished. They 
chafe at standing still. Their peace is broken 
in the very days when it ought to be the calm- 
est and sweetest. 

They are unwilling to confess that they are 
growing old, and to yield their places of re- 
sponsibility and care to younger men. Too 
often they make the mistake of overstaying 
their own greatest usefulness in positions 
which they have filled with fidelity and suc- 
cess in the past, but which, with their own 
waning powers, they can no longer fill accep- 
tably and well as heretofore. In this respect 
old age puts life to a severe test. It is the 
part of true wisdom in a man, as he advances 
in years, to recognize the fact that he can 
no longer continue to carry all the burdens 
that he bore in the days of his strength, nor 
do all the work that he did when he was in 
his life's prime. 



ON GROWING OLD SUCCESSFULLY. II9 

Sometimes old age grows unhappy and dis- 
contented. We cannot wonder at this. It 
becomes lonely, as one by one its sweet 
friendships and close companionships fall off 
in the resistless desolation which death pro- 
duces. The hands that have always been so 
busy are left well-nigh empty. It is not easy 
to keep sweet and gentle-spirited when a man 
must stand aside and see others take up and 
do the things he used to do himself, and when 
he must walk alone where in former years 
his life was blessed with tender human com- 
panionships. Broken health also comes in, 
ofttimes, as a burden of old age, which adds 
to the difficulty of the problem of beautiful 
living. 

These are some of the reasons why old age 
is a truer and sorer testing-time of character 
than youth or mid-life. New perils come with 
this period. Many men who live nobly and 
victoriously in the days of active struggle 
and hard toil, fail in the days of quiet and 
ease. While busy, and under pressure of 
duty, they prove true and faithful ; but they 



I20 THE HIDDEN LIFE. 

fail in the time of leisure, when the pressure 
is withdrawn. 

We should set ourselves the task, however, 
of living nobly and victoriously to the very 
close of life. We should make the whole day 
of life beautiful, to its last moments. The 
late afternoon should be as lovely, with its 
deep, serious blue, and its holy, restful quiet, 
as the forenoon, with its stir and freshness, 
and its splendor and sunshine; and the sun- 
setting should be as glorious with its amber 
and gold as the sunrising with its glow and 
radiance. 

The old, and those who are growing old, 
should never feel for a moment that their 
work, even their best work, is done, when 
they can no longer march and keep step in 
the columns with youth and strong manhood. 
The work of the later and riper years is just 
as important as that of the earlier years. It 
is not the same work, but it is no less essen- 
tial in the world. "Young men for action, 
old men for counsel,'' said the great philos- 
opher. The life that one may live in the 



ON GROWING OLD SUCCESSFULLY. 121 

quieter time, when the rush and the strife 
are left behind, may be even more lovely, 
more Christlike, more helpful, than was the 
life of the more exciting, stirring time that 
is gone. 

It may mean more in results, in real fruit- 
age, though lacking in stir and noise. Here 
is a parable of a beautiful old age: — 

** Yon is the apple-tree, 
Joints all shrunk like an old man's knee, 
Gaping trunk half eaten away, 
Crumbling visibly day by day ; 
Branches dead or dying fast, 
Topmost limb like a splintered mast; 
Yet behold in the prime of May, 
How it blooms in the sweet old way! 

Heart of it brave and warm. 

Spite of many a wintry storm, 

Throbbing still with the deep desire. 

Burning still with the eager fire, 

Striving still with the zeal and truth 

Of the gladsome morning days of youth; 

Still to do and to be, forsooth, 

Something worthy of Him whose care. 

Summer or winter, failed it ne'er. 

This is motive for you and me. 

When we grow old like the apple-tree." ' 



122 THE HIDDEN LIFE. 

The pathway of the righteous is compared 
to the shining light that shineth more and 
more unto the perfect day. A good life ought 
to grow more and more beautiful every day. 
The task of sweet, useful living is no less a 
duty when one has gotten through the years 
of mid-life, into the borders of old age, than 
it was in the days of strength. A man should 
not slacken his diligence, earnestness, faith- 
fulness, prayerfulness, or his faith in Christ, 
until he has come to the very gate of 
eternity. 

One of the perils of old age is just at this 
point. A man feels that -his work is done, 
his character is matured, his reputation is 
established ; and he is tempted to grow care- 
less, as if it could not now matter much what 
he does or what he leaves undone. This is 
an error which sometimes proves very costly. 
There have been old men who in their very 
last years, for lack of the accustomed wis- 
dom or restraint, have marred the beauty 
which through all their life their hands had 
been diligently and painstakingly fashioning. 



ON GROWING OLD SUCCESSFULLY. 1 23 

Sometimes the fabric of a whole life-work is 
torn down in a few days or months of foolish- 
ness, when the watch is taken off the life, 
and discipline is relaxed. 

We are not done with life in this world until 
the hands have been folded on the breast 
in their final repose ; therefore we should 
not slacken our diligence for an instant. We 
should make the last moments beautiful with 
trust and faith and sweet patience and quiet 
peace and earnest usefulness, dying beauti- 
fully. Robert Browning says in ** Rabbi Ben 
Ezra," — 

** Grow old along with me ! 
The best is yet to be, 

The last of life, for which the first was made. 
Our times are in his hand 
Who saith, * A whole I planned.' 

Youth shows but half; trust God, see all, nor be afraid." 

How shall we live so that we shall be sure of 
a successful and beautiful old age } For one 
thing, all the life, from youth up, must be true 
and worthy. Old age is the harvest of all the 
years. It is the time when whatsoever we 



124 ^^^ HIDDEN LIFE. 

have sown we shall also reap. Wasted years, 
too, give a harvest — a harvest of regret and 
sorrow, of unhappy memories, and remorseful 
self-accusings. We are building the house, all 
along the years, in which we must live when 
we grow old. The old man may change neigh- 
bors or change countries, but he cannot get 
away from himself. 

To have a golden harvest, we must sow good 
seeds. To have sweet memories, we must live 
purely, unselfishly, thoughtfully, with reverence 
for God and love for man. We must fill our 
hearts with the harmonies of love and truth 
along the years, if in the silence of old age we 
would listen to songs of gladness and peace. 

The old should never let duties drop out of 
their hands. Duties may not be the same when 
years have brought feebleness, but every day to 
the close brings something for the hands to do. 
No old man has earned the right to be useless, 
even for a day. The old should never cease to 
look forward for the best of life. The year we 
are now living we should always make better 
than any year that is past. It was an old man, 



ON GROWING OLD SUCCESSFULLY, 1 25 

with martyrdom imminent, who gave as his 
theory of life the forgetting of things that are 
past, and the stretching forth to things that 
are before. 

Such a life never grows old. Even at four- 
score it is ** eighty years young," not eighty 
years old. It is a beautiful fancy that in heaven 
the oldest are the youngest, since all life is 
toward immortal youth. Why may it not be so 
of the good on earth t We need not grow old. 
We can keep our heart young — our feelings, 
affections, yearnings, and hopes young. Then 
old age will indeed be the best of life — life's 
ripeness, life's time of coronation. 

*^ It is a favorite speculation of mine,'' said 
Dr. Chalmers, " that if spared to sixty years of 
age, we then enter the seventh decade of 
human life, and that this, if possible, should 
be turned into the Sabbath of our earthly pil- 
grimage, and spent sabbatically, as if on the 
shores of an eternal world, or, as it were, in 
the outer courts of the temple that is above, 
the tabernacle that is in heaven." 

This is a beautiful thought, with a suggestion 



126 THE HIDDEN LIFE, 

which must commend itself to many devout 
people drawing toward old age. It does not 
imply a decade of idleness, or of selfish ease, 
but such a use of the life in its ripeness and 
richness of experience as shall shed upon the 
world the benignest influence and the holiest 
benediction. 

"Old — we are growing old: 

Going on through a beautiful road, 
Finding earth a more blessed abode; 
Nobler work by our hands to be wrought, 
Freer paths for our hope and our thought; 
Because of the beauty the years unfold. 
We are cheerfully growing old. 

Old — we are growing old: 

Going up where the sunshine is clear; 

Watching grander horizons appear 

Out of clouds that enveloped our youth; 

Standing firm on the mountains of truth; 

Because of the glory the years unfold. 

We are joyfully growing old. 

Old — we are growing old : 

Going into the gardens of rest 

That glow through the gold of the west. 

Where the rose and the amaranth blend, 

And each path is the way to a friend; 

Because of the peace that the years unfold. 

We are thankfully growing old.'* 



CHAPTER XI. 

AS LIGHTS IN THE WORLD. 

" But the voice cried once, * My Brother, 

You devoted soul and mind 
To the welfare of your brethren, 

To the service of your kind. 
Now what sorrow can you comfort. 

You who live in helpless pain. 
With an impotent compassion 

Fretting out your life in vain ? ' 
No, and then the gentle answer 

Rose more full and loud and clear, 
*For the sake of all my brethren 

I thank God that I am here. 
Poor has been my life's best effort ; 

Now I waste no thought or breath. 
For the prayer of those who suffer 

Has the strength of love and death.' " 

Christians are intended to shine. The 
world is dark, and they are heaven's lamps 
set to lighten the darkness. The figure is a 
very striking one. *'Ye are the light of the 
world.*' Christ was careful to teach, too, that 
the lamp must be placed where it will shine, 

127 



128 THE HIDDEN LIFE, 

— on a lampstand, and not covered up or 
hidden. 

When it began to grow dark in the even- 
ing, the housekeeper lighted her rude lamp. 
It did not shine of itself ; it had to be lighted 
first. We are only unlighted candles until 
Christ lights us. There is no shining light 
in us in our natural, unspiritual state. Christ 
himself is the Light of the world, — the one 
self-burning, original light. ** He is the true 
light, which lighteth every man that cometh 
into the world.'* He is the brightness of the 
Father's glory. In him the full blessed light 
of God's own life and love shone over the 
earth. For a time he was in the world, and 
the brightness streamed far abroad. Then, 
before he went away, he lighted a cluster of 
lamps, and left them burning. " Now ye are 
the light of the world," he said to his disciples. 

We begin to be light only when Christ's 
life touches ours, when his light kindles ours. 
" Ye were sometimes darkness, but now are 
ye light in the Lord : walk as children of 
light." A house may have in it all the wires 



AS LIGHTS IN THE WORLD, 1 29 

and globes for electric lighting, everything in 
perfect order; but if there is no connection 
with the electro dynamo, there is no light. 
Let the connection be made, and the house is 
full of light. We have in us the capacity for 
shining, — " the spirit of man is the candle of 
the Lord," — but there is no burning until the 
flame of God has lighted us. Even the apos- 
tles were only a cluster of unlighted candles 
until, on the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit 
touched them. Then they began at once to 
shine as bright lights. 

We may notice also that it is light we are 
to give out — not noise, not display, not good 
works only, though there will always be good 
works, not mere professions of religion, but 
light, something that will shine out and reveal 
itself by its brightness, that will make at least 
one spot of the world a little brighter. Truth 
is light. Holiness is light. All the fruits of 
the Spirit are light, — love, joy, peace, long-suf- 
fering, gentleness, goodness, meekness, faith. 

We are in danger of thinking that the most 
characteristic thing about a Christian life is its 



I30 THE HIDDEN LIFE. 

activities, its public confessions, its charities, 
the things it does. But light rays out noise- 
lessly. Who ever hears it ? Who ever sees it ? 
Silently and invisibly it does its wonderful 
work. Its mission is not to call attention to 
itself, but to reveal beauty in everything that is 
beautiful. When the sun rises on a summer's 
morning, earth's loveliness in plant, flower, 
grass, and waving harvest, and in mountain, 
hill, waterfall, — in all nature, — is revealed. 
The light in a Christian life should make all 
the world a little more beautiful. It brightens 
the commonest things. The dreariest places 
are made lovely by it. Poverty, care and sor- 
row are transfigured by a victorious faith. 

The best part of a Christian life is not in 
what it does, but in what it is — the quiet light 
that shines out in the character ; not the act, 
but the spirit that is in the act ; not the ser- 
vice rendered, but the love that is in the ser- 
vice and inspires it ; not the work that is done, 
but the motive that makes the work sacred. 
Ofttimes there is a holier, softer, whiter light 
that streams out in the joyous submission of 



AS LIGHTS IN THE WORLD, I31 

the believer, in loss, sorrow, or pain, than ever 
there was in his life in the days of greatest 
activity, when large things were achieved, 
when hard battles were fought. Light is life's 
truest and best expression. 

There is something else that the figure of 
light suggests, — there must be burning be- 
fore there can be shining. Scientific men tell 
us that the light which streams from the sun, 
which warms the earth, woos out the flow- 
ers, ripens the harvests, makes and reveals 
beauty, and spreads cheer everywhere, is pro- 
duced by a burning up of the sun's substance. 
The same is true of all light, — it is at the 
cost of self-consuming that it shines out. The 
soft light of the evening lamp which fills the 
room comes from the wasting of the oil. 

It is just as true in Christian life that burn- 
ing must come before shining. We cannot be 
of great use to others without real cost to 
ourselves. Burning suggests suffering. We 
shrink from pain ; we do not set it down among 
the pleasant things of our life. We are apt 
to feel that we are doing the greatest good 



132 THE HIDDEN LIFE. 

in the world when we are strong and able for 
active duty, and when heart and hands are 
full of kindly services. When we are called 
aside and can only suffer, when we are sick, 
when we are consumed with pain, when all 
our activities have been dropped out of our 
hands, we feel that we are no longer of use, 
that we are not doing anything. But if we 
are patient and submissive, it is almost certain 
that we are a greater blessing to the world 
in our time of suffering and pain than we 
were in the days when we thought we were 
doing the most by our work. We are burning 
now, and shining because we are burning. But 
little light rayed out from us in the days of 
ease and comfort. Now, however, when we 
are being consumed by sorrow, or are wasting 
in sickness, or are giving out the best of our 
life and its substance in self-denying service, 
there is pouring out from us a quiet and holy 
light which is an incalculable blessing to the 
world. 

Christ himself was a sufferer. He was ut- 
terly unselfish. He never saved himself. In 



AS LIGHTS IN THE WORLD. 1 33 

his life love was ever giving. He was never 
too tired to answer any call that came to his 
ear for help. " Virtue went out of him '* to 
heal ; he did not heal easily, without cost to 
himself. We sometimes say it is very easy 
to be kind and gentle. No, it is never easy. 
Every ray of light that streams from the lamp 
costs the burning up of a drop of oil. Every 
gentle thing that Jesus ever did was at the 
cost of some part of his own being. 

Then, at the close of that life of lowly min- 
istry, burning and shining, there was Christ's 
great final, all-inclusive giving of himself on 
the cross for our redemption. Never before 
or since has the world seen such an utter 
consuming of a life on any altar of love as 
when Jesus hung in the darkness, and suf- 
fered and died. But we know, too, what won- 
drous light streamed from that cross. It has 
reached all the ends of the earth. It shines 
in millions of homes and hearts. It is the 
glory of heaven — " the Lamb is the light 
thereof.'' Christ never could have blessed the 
world by merely living a quiet, easy, respect- 



134 '^^^ HIDDEN LIFE, 

able, and prosperous life, as he did by giving 
himself in sacrifice of love. He is the Light 
of the world, because his life was consumed in 
love's flame. 

The same principle rules in all life, — we 
must burn before we can shine. Jesus testi- 
fied of the Baptist, " He was a burning and 
shining light.'' John's life was a splendid il- 
lustration of the truth. First, we find him 
burning and shining in the wilderness. After 
a brief time of popularity he began to be 
overshadowed by his Master. Jesus grew in 
favor, and John's popularity waned. Does any 
one imagine that it was easy for John to de- 
crease while Jesus increased t Yet he never 
chafed or repined. Quietly and gladly he al- 
lowed his earthly glory to be consumed, to 
burn up, while he poured out the gentle light 
of praise and honor for his Lord. 

By and by he was cast into prison for his 
heroic faithfulness, and lay there, apparently 
forgotten even by him whose way he had 
prepared, but still without repining. At last 
he was beheaded to gratify the revenge of a 



AS LIGHTS IN THE WORLD, I35 

wicked woman — his noble life thus tragically 
ended in its very prime. "Wasted/' his disci- 
ples must have thought, as they buried the 
headless body — utterly consumed. Yes ; but 
consumed only as the oil of the lamp is con- 
sumed, meanwhile sending out soft, mellow 
light to fill the room. John was a burning 
and a shining light. The light from his life 
is shining to-day wherever the gospel goes. 
The world is brighter and better because he 
lived so nobly, so unselfishly, witnessed so 
faithfully, and then died so heroically. 

There is a lesson here for all, and also com- 
fort for many. The lesson is that we must 
burn to shine. We may not all have to burn 
as Jesus did, giving our very life in sacrifice, or 
as John did, with such utter self-effacement ; 
but the law must be the same in all, — there 
can be no shining without some measure of 
burning. The oil must waste if there is to be 
light. He who is not ready for the giving up 
of his life, for self-denial and sacrifice, is not 
ready to be a lamp of Christ, giving light in 
this world. 



136 THE HIDDEN LIFE, 

**How much we take, how little give! 
Yet every life is meant 
To help all lives ; each man should live 
For all men's betterment." 



The comfort is for those who find themselves 
in positions where they must give their life 
to be burned, consumed, in duty, in serving 
others, or in suffering. It may be that in just 
these experiences they are giving to the world 
greater blessing than ever they gave it in the 
days which seemed so much happier. 

We need to watch, however, that we really 
shine when we are burning. Some persons 
chafe, fret, and repine ; some even grow rebel- 
lious in suffering. They do not suffer gladly ; 
they do not make sacrifices cheerfully. These 
do not shine, or at least the light they give out 
is dim and stained. We shine only when we 
acquiesce in the will of God, even in suffering 
and loss ; when we rejoice and sing even in 
pain ; when we serve in love, without regret or 
complaining. Peace is light ; joy is light. We 
must learn to suffer patiently, without com- 
plaining ; then we shall 3hine while we burn. 



AS LIGHTS IN THE WORLD. 1 37 

Wherever we are set in this world we are to 
be a light. We must be sure that our candle is 
really lighted by the torch of the Holy Spirit. 
Then we must be sure that our lamp is not 
hidden under a bushel or under a bed, but that 
it is on the lampstand, so that its light may 
shine out to fill all the house. 

** My life is not my own, but Christ's, who gave it, 
And he bestows it upon all the race ; 
I lose it for his sake, and thus I save it; 
I hold it close, but only to expend it ; 
Accept it. Lord, for others, through thy grace." 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE CRITICAL HABIT. 

Lord, make us love all; that when we meet, 
Even myriads of earth's myriads at thy bar, 
We may be glad, as all true lovers are. 

Who, having parted, count reunion sweet. 

Safe gathered home around thy blessed feet, 

Come home by different roads from near or far, 
Whether by whirlwind or by flaming car. 

From pangs or sleep, safe folded round thy seat. 

Christina G. Rossetti. 

St. Paul, in one of his terse, strong sen- 
tences, tells us that "knowledge puffeth up, 
but love buildeth up.*' Mere knowledge in- 
flates a man, makes him vain, self-conceited. 
In relation to others it makes him arrogant, 
critical, impatient, censorious, intolerant. Thus 
knowledge alone is insufficient as a qualifica- 
tion for dealing with others. There must be 
love as well as knowledge. Love in the heart 
tempers knowledge. It makes us patient with 

138 



THE CRITICAL HABIT 1 39 

others, charitable toward their mistakes, quick 
to see the good that is in them, ready to bear 
with their infirmities, and to help them to do 
better. 

At no other point is this teaching more 
important than in our judging of others. The 
habit of finding fault is altogether too com- 
mon. It is easy ; any one can find fault. We 
see blemishes and flaws, and we like to speak 
about them. It seems a luxury to some peo- 
ple to do so. The law of love, however, if 
given full sway, would put restraint upon us, 
not only upon the utterance of our criticisms, 
but also upon all unkindly judgment of others 
and of their acts. Love suffereth long, and is 
kind. Love taketh not account of evil. 

We should think of the effect of criticism 
on others. It discourages and ofttimes does 
serious hurt. Life is not easy for any one, 
and to many people it is very hard. They 
are carrying every ounce of burden they can 
possibly carry. They sometimes almost totter 
beneath their heavy load. Now suppose that, in- 
stead of saying cheering words to these people, 



140 THE HIDDEN LIFE, 

heartening words which would put new hope 
and courage into their spirit, we do nothing 
but criticise them, find fault with them, speak 
in a harsh, unloving way of them ; what is 
the effect upon them ? It can only be hurt- 
ful. It makes their load all the heavier. Or, 
rather, it takes out of their heart the enthu- 
siasm, the hope, the courage, and makes it 
harder for them to go on. 

At certain points in the Alps, tourists are 
cautioned by the guides not to speak or sing, 
or even to whisper, as the faintest breath 
might start reverberations in the air which 
would loosen a delicately poised avalanche from 
its place on the mountain, and bring it crash- 
ing down upon villages and fields. There are 
men and women who are walking under such 
stress of burden, care, responsibility, sorrow, 
or temptation, that one whisper of censure, 
of criticism, of complaint, of unkindness, may 
cause them to fall under their load. It is a 
crime thus to imperil another life. On the 
other hand, we should be the friend and helper 
of every human soul in its struggle after bet- 



THE CRITICAL HABIT. I4I 

ter things. The world needs love, love that 
will never add to another's burden, that will 
not judge or condemn another, but that will 
always give cheer, encouragement, and inspi- 
ration of hope. Knowledge that puffs up and 
makes one censorious is not of God. With- 
out love we are not fit to touch another life. 
Love builds up. 

This lesson is not unneeded. We may as 
well confess that we are all prone to be crit- 
ical of our fellows. We fall most easily into 
the habit of saying unkindly things of others. 
We do not mean to hurt any one. We dis- 
claim all intention to be unfair or unkind. 
We imagine that our criticisms are just and 
right, and therefore that we should utter them. 
We forget that we ought to look at others 
through eyes of love, and not through eyes of 
mere cold knowledge. We do not know how 
much harm we do by our unchristian censure 
and faultfinding. 

Especially should we think of the influence 
of this critical habit on Christian workers, 
our companions and friends. It is not our 



142 THE HIDDEN LIFE. 

work that they are doing. They are not in 
our employ. We are not their masters. They 
are not under our direction. We have no 
right whatever to dictate to them how they 
shall do the work of Christ, or to criticise 
the way in which they do it. Christ is their 
Master. It is his work that they are doing. 
They should do it under his direction. To 
him as their Master they stand or fall. We 
can have no possible right to criticise them, 
or find fault with them. 

In some churches there is too much of the 
faultfinding spirit. It is not the true Christ- 
spirit. When retiring and timid Christians 
know that everything they do is watched for 
the purpose, not of kindly commendation, but 
of criticism, and when they hear of unfriendly 
things said about their work, it is not hard to 
foretell the consequences. There are certain 
matters in which liberty of adverse opinion 
may be allowed, and where no one can be 
blamed for expressing his judgment. There 
may be no special harm in criticising a woman's 
dress, or bonnet, or gait, or the house which a 



i 



THE CRITICAL HABIT 1 43 

man builds, or his careless way of doing busi- 
ness, or the singing of one who sings as a pro- 
fessional, although possibly even this sort of 
censure cannot be vindicated on strict Chris- 
tian principles. But certainly we have no 
right to sit as judge on our fellow Christians' 
efforts to do Christ's work. It may be that 
we know better ways of working, and could 
teach them much. But we should never as- 
sume to be their censors, their judges, their 
critics, talking of the sacred things of Christ 
as if they were only pieces of common week- 
day work. 

We all remember how Jesus dealt with his 
disciples in their poor, faulty work. He com- 
mended what they did. " She hath done what 
she could,'' was his gentle defence of one who 
had done a deed of love which older disciples 
were condemning and criticising. So it ever 
was. He never found fault with his disciples 
when they were doing their best. 

Some one has said that many of the most 
beautiful things in heaven are earth's blunders, 
— things God's children, with loving heart, 



144 ^^^ HIDDEN LIFE. 

tried to do to please God. The blunders tell 
of love, and are dear to God. There is a rich 
home in which the most sacred and precious 
household treasure is a puckered seam. A 
little child one day picked up the mother's sew- 
ing, — some simple thing she had been working 
on and had laid down, — and after half an 
hour's quiet brought it, and gave it to her, say- 
ing, ** Mamma, Ts been helping you, 'cause I 
love you so." The stitches were long, and the 
sewing was all puckered ; but the mother saw 
only beauty in it all, for it told of her child's 
love and eagerness to please her. That night 
the little one sickened, and in a few hours was 
dead. No wonder the mother keeps that piece 
of drawn and puckered sewing among her 
rarest treasures. Nothing that the most skil- 
ful hands have wrought, among all her house- 
hold possessions, means to her half so much 
as that handkerchief with the child's unskilful 
work on it. 

May not this be the way in which God looks 
at his children's homeliest and humblest efforts 
to do things for him ? We know well how 



THE CRITICAL HABIT. I45 

faulty even the best Christian work done in 
this world must seem to Christ, — how full of 
unwisdom, how foolish, much of it, how mixed 
with self and vanity, how untactful, how indis- 
creet, how without prayer and love, how ig- 
norant, how ungentle. Of course we can see 
many faults in the work of others ; but we 
should remember always how poor, mistaken, 
unworthy, how imperfectly done, is even our 
best service, as it looks to Christ's pure and 
holy eyes. We should remember, too, that he 
does not chide us for it, does not blame us 
for doing so ill the sacred things he gave us 
to do, does not talk complainingly to the angels 
and the apostles about our mistakes. Oh, no ! 
many of our poor blunders, our most faulty 
pieces of work, are held as among our Master's 
most sacred treasures in heaven. He uses our 
blundering efforts, if only love and faith be 
in them, to bless others, to do good, to build 
up his kingdom. He is saving the world to- 
day, not through faultless work of angels, but 
through the poor, ignorant, flawed, ofttimes 
foolish, work of disciples who love him and 



146 THE HIDDEN LIFE. 

want to help him. He puts the treasures of 
grace for the world into earthen vessels. 

Can we not learn this great lesson from our 
Master ? '* Knowledge puffs up, but love builds 
up/* Somehow the habit so grows upon us 
that we come to feel after a while as if we had 
a right to find fault, we have grown so wise. 
" Knowledge puffs up.'' We think ourselves 
quite competent to criticise any Christian 
worker, old or young, layman or minister. 
"Knowledge puffs up." Yes; but it is not 
Christian, it is not like Christ. He did not 
do it, and why should we } If he is pleased 
to use people's poor, blundering work, have we 
any right to find fault with it } 

We should remember, too, that no most 
faulty work that any one may do hurts Christ's 
heart half so much as when we grow censorious 
and critical. That is a kind of work which 
never pleases him, which he never commends. 
It is never beautiful in his eyes. 

"Love builds up." Shall we not learn to 
look on all other Christians and their work as 
Christ looks upon us and our work, — with pa- 



THE CRITICAL HABIT I47 

tience and love ? Shall we not restrain our 
lips from every faultfinding word that we are 
tempted to speak when we see flaws or mis- 
takes ? Of course we can criticise finely, but 
that is not a high Christian attainment, a fruit 
of the Spirit, an art in which proficiency is 
honorable. Criticism is not our mission. 

Two things we are set here to do : we should 
do our own work as well as we can ; then we 
should give cheer, inspiration, and encourage- 
ment to every other worker for Christ who 
comes within our influence. How much more 
angelic is this than to censure and blame and 
find fault with others t Words of encourage- 
ment spoken to those who are striving to be of 
use and to live well are holy words. They 
please the Master, and they inspire in those to 
whom they are spoken the hope that is the 
forerunner of success. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE OTHER SIDE. 

" If thou art blest, 
Then let the sunshine of thy gladness rest 
On the dark edges of each cloud that lies 
Black in thy brother's skies. 

If thou art sad, 
Still be thou in thy brother's gladness glad." 

There are two sides of life's road, — the 
side on which are lying the wounded, the suf- 
fering, the needy, the despoiled, the dying ; 
and the ''other side." The other side is a 
well-trodden side. It is the easier side to go 
on. There is nothing to interrupt you. You 
do not need to lose time in stopping to help 
people who are sick, weak, fainting, wounded, 
or in any want or trouble. You will get 
along faster on this other side. You will save 
yourself a great deal of inconvenience and 
annoyance, and much uncomfortable feeling. 

148 



THE OTHER SIDE, 1 49 

It is very trying to a man or a woman with 
tender sensibilities to see suffering, or to look 
upon one who has been injured. Some good 
people cannot stand it at all, — they faint when 
they see blood. It is hard to do anything for 
unfortunate people ; it pains one's kindly heart 
even to look at them in their distress. 

So we see that the side where the suffer- 
ing, the poor, the troubled, the needy, the 
fallen, lie, is not the easy side. It has in it 
much that is painful to a tender heart. It 
hinders one, too, in one's journey, if one stops 
to do anything for the relief of these hurt 
ones. Then it costs, for it takes both effort 
and money to give any kind of effective help. 

The other side has nothing on it to pain 
one's sensibilities. It is said that when Marie 
Antoinette was riding to Notre Dame for her 
bridal the command was given to keep from 
the wayside all beggars, cripples, and ragged 
people, that there might be nothing in all 
the course to pain the gentle-hearted woman. 
That is the way the other side is kept. You 
can go that way, and nothing will distress 



150 THE HIDDEN LIFE. 

you. There will be no appeals to your sym- 
pathy which you will be inclined to heed, no 
calls for your help, no hands reached out for 
kindness and charity. You will get along 
quickly ; for there will be no interruptions, no 
loss of time in relieving any one. 

The other side would seem the better side 
for us to take. Yes, if comfort, and speed, and 
the saving of our money, and earthly ease and 
success, be life's real ends. But do you know 
where the other side goes to .? If you will 
turn to the twenty-fifth chapter of the Gospel 
according to St. Matthew, you will see the 
farther end of this delightfully easy road. 
** Then shall he say also unto them on the 
left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into 
the eternal fire which is prepared for the 
devil and his angels.** 

That is where the other side comes out in 
the eternal world ; for the Judge says of these 
people, " I was an hungered, and ye gave me 
no meat : I was thirsty, and ye gave me no 
drink : I was a stranger, and ye took me not 
in ; naked, and ye clothed me not ; sick, and in 



THE OTHER SIDE. I Si 

prison, and ye visited me not/* They had not 
hurt any one, — these people on the left hand. 
They were not robbers. They had not 
wounded any one. They had tempted no one. 
They were good people, who had not harmed 
even a dog or a worm. They had only not 
turned aside to relieve the suffering. They 
had only passed by on the other side. Yet, 
when the veil is lifted, it seems that the other 
side leads to the place '^ prepared for the devil 
and his angels." 

We should not overlook the fact that the 
two men who passed by on the other side in 
our Lord's parable were regarded as religious 
men of the best type in those days. They 
were rated as good men, — typically good. 
They professed to stand for God. They 
prayed for the people, and offered sacrifices 
for them. They were thought to have com- 
passionate hearts, able to sympathize. Yet, 
when they were brought face to face with great 
and urgent human needs, they passed by on 
the other side. 

This is our Lord's own picture, and there- 



152 THE HIDDEN LIFE, 

fore is not in any way exaggerated. The re- 
ligion of our Lord's day was weighed and 
found wanting. Faith without works is dead. 
A true creed truly believed is life in a soul. 
Its essence is love, — not love to God only, for 
the apostle of love tells us that he who loves 
God will love his neighbor also. The religion 
of Christ never takes a man on the other side ; 
it takes him right among human needs. 

We have this fact illustrated in this same 
story. The priest and the Levite came, and 
brought no relief. Then God sent another 
man. This man differs from the other two. 
We cannot expect much of him ; for he is 
half heathen, — he is a Samaritan. He will 
not do anything for this wounded Jew. But 
see ! he is stopping. He gets off his beast, 
and goes over to the dying man. He speaks 
to him. Now he is down on his knees in 
the dust, trying to help him. He laves his 
wounds, and pours in wine and oil. Then he 
lifts him upon his own beast, and supports him, 
bearing him to the wayside inn. There he 
personally cares for him overnight, and when 



THE OTHER SIDE. 153 

he leaves in the morning he makes provision 
for the man's care until he has recovered from 
his wounds. 

This Samaritan did not take the other side. 
He took the side of the suffering and needy. 
It cost him much. He lost time, and to a 
business man time is money. He put himself 
in danger from the robbers. He got his 
clothes soiled, — dusty and bloody. It was 
hard work for him to get the wounded man 
to the inn. Then it was an enemy he was 
helping, a man who despised him ; and he had 
to overcome his natural aversion in showing 
him such kindness. 

The other side would have been easier. 
It is always easier, less costly. People seem 
to get along better not to worry with benev- 
olence and charity, not to try to be kind to 
the unfortunate, not to trouble themselves with 
attempts to rescue the imperilled, lift up the 
fallen, or save the heathen. Good Christian 
people who are active in city mission work 
could find much pleasanter ways of spending 
their time than in visiting the slums, and in 



154 THE HIDDEN LIFE, 

working among the degraded, trying to do 
them good. The Christ-side is not the easy 
side to go on. Jesus himself did not find 
it easy — we know where it took him. 

But we know where this side comes out 
in the eternal world. " Then shall the King 
say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye 
blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom 
prepared for you from the foundation of the 
world : for I was an hungered, and ye gave 
me meat : I was thirsty, and ye gave me 
drink : I was a stranger, and ye took me in ; 
naked, and ye clothed me : I was sick, and 
ye visited me : I was in prison, and ye came 
unto me.'' They had taken the side where 
the unfortunate were, and hands and heart 
had joined in service. 

There is a story of a company of eager run- 
ners in a race. At the very beginning there 
was one who led the others. There seemed 
no question that he would win. Presently, 
however, a case of distress lay in his course ; 
and he stopped and gave relief. Again he was 
on his way, and well in advance, when a child's 



THE OTHER SIDE. 1 55 

cry arrested him, and he turned aside to give 
comfort. Thus continually, as he went on, he 
Was interrupted by need, sorrow, and distress ; 
and to every appeal he gave instant and loving 
heed, leaving his chosen path to aid and to 
help. At last, when the race was over, he 
had been far outstripped by those who were 
less strong and swift than himself, but who had 
paid no regard to any cries of need on the way. 
These chose the other side, and reached the 
earthly goal, and were crowned ; while he, all 
unknown, unheeded, unhonored, stood there 
wearing no earthly crown, yet the real winner 
of the race. 

This tells the story of thousands of what 
are called failures among men. Those who 
might have won highest honors turned aside 
from their ambitions to do God*s work on the 
way. They stopped to give comfort, to lift up 
the fallen, to help the weak. In the race with 
the other men they lost, but in God's sight 
they are the real winners. The other side is 
the world's side ; but it is not Christ's side, 
nor the side of those who truly follow him. 



1 56 THE HIDDEN LIFE, 

** We go our ways in life too much alone , 

We hold ourselves too far from all our kind ; 
Too often we are dead to sigh and moan, 

Too often to the weak and helpless blind ; 
Too often where distress and want abide 
We turn, and pass upon the other side. 

The other side is trodden smooth, and worn 
By footprints passing idly all the day ; 

Where lie the bruised ones that faint and mourn 
Is seldom more than an untrodden way. 

Our selfish hearts are for our feet the guide ; 

They lead us by upon the other side. 

It should be ours the oil and wine to pour 
Into the bleeding wounds of stricken ones ; 

To take the smitten and the sick and sore, 

And bear them where a stream of blessing runs. 

Instead, we look about ; the way is wide, 

And so we pass upon the other side. 

O friends and brothers, gliding down the years, 

Humanity is calling each and all 
In tender accents, born of grief and tears. 

I pray you, listen to the thrilling call ; 
You cannot, in your cold and selfish pride, 
Pass guiltlessly by on the other side.*' 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE HOPEFULNESS OF JESUS. 

We are weary, and are 
Feeble and faint in our march, 
Ready to drop down and die ; 
Still thou tarriedst, and still 
Gavest the weary thine hand. 
If in the ways of the world 
Stones have wounded thy feet, 
Toil or dejection have tried 
Thy spirit, of that we saw 
Nothing ; to us thou wert still 
Cheerful and healthful and firm. 

M. Arnold. 

It is cheering to know that our Leader never 
faltered, never lost heart, for one moment. 
The story of Jesus, from the moment of his 
birth until the day when he was taken up, is 
one of magnificent hopefulness. There was an 
old prophecy concerning him which said, *^ He 
shall not fail nor be discouraged, till he have 
set judgment in the earth.'* And he never 
was discouraged. Life was not easy for him ; 

J57 



158 THE HIDDEN LIFE, 

it was always hard ; but hope never languished 
in his heart. 

His beginning was lowly and feeble in hu- 
man eyes. He was born of a peasant mother. 
Though angels sang of his coming into the 
world, the shepherds found the wonderful 
Babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in 
a manger. His early years were spent in 
poverty. He learned a trade — he whose hand 
had made the heavens wrought at a common 
carpenter's bench. Yet the lowliness of his 
circumstances did not embitter his spirit. He 
never complained that his earthly life was not 
in keeping with the glory of his person or the 
dignity of his mission. He never said that he 
could make nothing of his life because of the 
narrowness and unmeetness of his environ- 
ment. Indeed, out of his very poverty and 
toil, and out of the very limitations of his 
condition, came some of the finest things in 
his character. 

It is never in ease or luxury, with freedom 
from sense of need and care, that the world's 
best and strongest helpers are trained. Those 



THE HOPEFULNESS OF JESUS. IS9 

who have grown up in the midst of common 
human conditions, knowing care and the pres- 
sure of life's burdens, feeling the stress of need 
and the pinch of narrow limitations, meeting 
trial and enduring struggle, learn in these 
very experiences to be sympathetic and help- 
ful to others. 

Nor did the hopefulness of Jesus fail him 
in the days of his poverty and trial, or in the 
midst of his straitened circumstances. He 
lived a life of sweet content, and learned the 
lessons that were set for him. He never lost 
his joy. One secret was that he was ever 
doing his Father's will ; and this gave him 
gladness, even in the hour of bitterest pain. 
Another secret was his confidence in the final 
outcome of the work he was doing at such 
tremendous cost. He knew his mission could 
not fail. 

The danger of narrow circumstances is that 
the heart may lose its sweetness and grow 
bitter. But Jesus went through his years of 
poverty, want, hardship, and toil with small 
earnings, and all the petty annoyances and 



l6o THE HIDDEN LIFE. 

frets of Galilean peasant life, with heart as 
quiet, peaceful, and loving as if he had been 
living yet in heaven. He was never fretted or 
worried. He was never afraid to see the last 
farthing go, or the last loaf eaten. He lived 
himself his own lesson against anxiety before 
he gave it to his disciples. 

Few men have ever wrought in this world 
whose lives seemed more utter failures at the 
end than did the life of Jesus. There seemed 
no room for him in this world. He found no 
welcome when he first came. During the won- 
derful years of his public ministry, though 
crowds followed him, he was not loved, save by 
a very few. Most of those who followed him, 
followed him only for his miracles, through 
curiosity, or for the help they might get from 
him. At the last all men forsook him. Then 
all ended on a cross. 

Yet in this long experience of unwelcome, 
rejection, and ingratitude, he was never dis- 
couraged. He foresaw the end, but he came 
toward the dark tragedy like a conqueror. 
Hope shone in his face, and burned in his 



THE HOPEFULNESS OF JESUS. l6l 

words, like a flame of glory. In the same 
sentence in which he said he must be killed, 
he said also that he would be raised again 
the third day. Instead of speaking of his 
work as a failure, he spoke of the kingdom 
he was to establish as one that would fill the 
world. He went on making plans for the 
future, beyond his death, as if death would 
be only an incident in his great mission. The 
cross had no dismay for him, because he had 
a prevision of what lay beyond it. He talked 
of his kingdom, even on his trial. 

What was the secret of this sublime hope- 
fulness of Jesus } He knew that his work 
was only beginning. He was a sower, not a 
reaper. Ages to come would witness the har- 
vest from his life, his teachings, his tears, 
his blood. He would rise again, and his name 
and glory and his saving health would fill 
all the earth. He would see of the travail 
of his soul, and would be satisfied. 

We have another illustration of the hope- 
fulness of Jesus in his dealing with men. He 
saw men as sinners, but as sinners who could 



1 62 THE HIDDEN LIFE. 

be saved. In even the veriest wreck of hu- 
manity that crept to his feet he beheld the 
ruin of a child of his Father, but in no case 
a hopeless ruin. He perceived in every soiled 
soul the possibilities of restoration to the image 
divine. He was in the world as a physician, 
and had all wisdom and all skill. He knew 
just what was wrong in each life, and knew 
also how to cure the disease, how to restore 
the soul to beauty. 

** He took the suffering human race, 

He read each wound, each weakness, clear, 

And struck his finger on the place, 

And said, * Thou ailest here, and here.' " 

There were no hopeless cases to his eye, 
no lives which could not be made whole. 
Those whom the Pharisees regarded as lost, 
he saw as straying, wandering sheep; and he 
was the Good Shepherd who had come to 
seek them, and bear them back to the fold. 
In every human soul he found something 
that was worth saving — he saw the gold of 
divine life gleaming amid the moral and spir- 
itual debris. Men whom other teachers would 



THE HOPEFULNESS OF JESUS. 1 63 

have regarded as hopeless, he took, and Hfted 
them up to noble, beautiful life. He took 
Simon, a rough, swearing fisherman, and, dis- 
cerning the man in him under all the rough- 
ness, called him Peter, a rock, and by wise 
discipline trained him into majestic strength 
of manly character and apostolic power. He 
found Matthew, a publican, an outcast, and 
seeing the nobility of nature in him beneath 
his soiled name and reputation, called him to 
be an apostle, and the writer of the first 
Gospel. He saw Zaccheus, another outcast, 
and, looking into his soul, perceived the gleam- 
ing gold of Abrahamic virtue shining amid 
the ruin, and called him to sainthood. One 
day a woman crept to his feet, and began to 
wash them with her hot tears. The Pharisee 
in whose house Jesus was eating knew her 
to be an abandoned woman, and regarded her 
unfit for any respectable man to touch. But 
Jesus saw amid the wrecks of life a soul, and 
saved her. So he went about continually, 
perceiving in every life on which his eyes 
fell material for immortal temple-building. 



164 THE HIDDEN LIFE. 

We see this same marvellous hopefulness in 
the patience of Jesus toward his disciples. 
The work of training them would certainly 
have been discouraging to any other teacher. 
How could he ever make apostles of such men.? 
They lacked the elements which seemed es- 
sential in the men who were to found a heav- 
enly kingdom in this world. The old evil 
was forever breaking out in them, marring 
his work on their lives. But he was never 
discouraged. He had unfailing faith and in- 
finite patience. At last his faith and patience 
were justified and rewarded, for after his as- 
cension his apostles went out and filled the 
world with the story of his mission. 

In this unconquerable hopefulness of Jesus 
there ought to be rich inspiration for all his 
friends. He never doubted the final triumph 
of his kingdom, and shall we doubt it } Men 
are talking pessimistically these days about 
Christianity, but that was not the spirit which 
was in the heart of the Master. We should 
never be discouraged. Old forms may fall 
away, the old order may change, organizations 



THE HOPEFULNESS OF JESUS. 1 65 

may grow effete, and lose their efficiency; 
but the spirit of Christ is unconquerable, and 
the life of Christ in the world never can fail. 

From Christ's optimism, too, we should get 
new hope for men. We need more of our 
Master's enthusiasm for humanity. No deg- 
radation should be regarded as hopeless. From 
the veriest ruin of a life we should not de- 
spair of seeing holy sainthood rising. 

Then we should seek to have Christ's hope- 
fulness in hard conditions and circumstances. 
We are too easily cast down by trial. We 
allow ourselves to be weakened by discourage- 
ment. We are too easily dismayed. Our Mas- 
ter would have us unaffected by life's changes, 
undaunted by earthly losses, with a hope that 
never fails, and a faith that never wavers. 

** Through storm and sun the age draws on 
When heaven and earth shall meet, 
For the Lord has said that glorious 

He will make the place of his feet. 
And the grass may die on the summer hills, 

The flower fade by the river, 
But our God is the same through endless years, 
And his word shall stand forever. 



1 66 THE HIDDEN LIFE. 

* What of the night, O watchman 

Set to mark the dawn of day ? ' 

* The wind blows fair from the morning star, 

And the shadows flee away. 
Dark are the vales, but the mountains glow 

As the light its splendor flings, 
And the Sun of Righteousness comes up 

With healing in his wings.' 

Shine on, shine on, O blessed Sun, 

Through all the round of heaven, 
Till the darkest vale and the farthest isle 

Full to thy light are given. 
Till the desert and the wilderness 

As Sharon's plain shall be. 
And the love of the Lord shall fill the earth 

As the waters fill the sea.'* 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE VALUE OF THE RESERVE. 

Nor deem the irrevocable past 
As wholly wasted, wholly vain, 
If, rising on its wrecks, at last 
To something nobler we attain. 

Longfellow. 

Life is full of crises. They lie hidden along 
the way, and we come upon them suddenly and 
unexpectedly. We have no time then to make 
adequate and fitting preparation for meeting 
them ; and if we have no reserve from which 
to draw for these emergencies, which require 
so much more than ordinary resources, we 
shall fail in them. 

This principle has illustration in all depart- 
ments of life. A man who carries no reserve 
of physical vitality is likely to succumb to a 
slight illness, while one with stores of health 

in his constitution passes safely through a 

167 



1 68 THE HIDDEN LIFE. 

much severer sickness. The annals of war 
afford many examples of the same law. A 
commander who has all his forces in action, 
and has no reserve to bring upon the field to 
turn the scale when a crisis comes and the bat- 
tle trembles in the balance, loses the day. On 
the other hand, the commander who has a re- 
serve force to call up at the critical moment, 
when decision is wavering, wins the field. 

In moral and spiritual life it is the same. It 
is the reserve power that counts for most in all 
final tests. It is the man who is ready for 
emergencies that succeeds. It is not enough 
to be barely prepared for ordinary events. 
The ship that is built only for calm days and 
quiet seas glides on safely enough while the 
sky is blue and the waters are smooth ; but 
what will it do in the storms and tempests 
which are sure to come.^ The life that is pre- 
pared only for easy experiences, for happy 
days, for friendly influences and favoring cir- 
cumstances, gets on well enough while its way 
runs along amid gardens and fountains, where 
all is beauty and ease ; but what will it do 



THE VALUE OF THE RESERVE. 1 69 

when the path bends suddenly into a dark 
chasm of sorrow, or into the midst of fierce 
enmities and antagonisms ? If it has no re- 
serve strength in readiness for such a time of 
stress and need, it can only sink down in de- 
feat. A ship to be prepared for safe passage 
over tempest-swept seas must have built into 
its keel power to resist the angriest storm that 
may strike it. It is not sufficient that it be 
strong enough merely to glide along in smooth 
waters. A life to be assuredly victorious in 
every possible emergency must be ready not 
only for the quiet days of happiness and joy, 
but must be prepared with stores of reserve 
strength for any possible trial or conflict that 
may arise in the future. 

No career is a dead level from cradle to 
grave. The days are not all bright, the course 
is not all smooth, the experiences are not all 
pleasant and agreeable. We all come to steep 
pinches, where ordinary strength is not ade- 
quate. We pass into gloomy places, in which 
we shall be left in darkness if we have no 
night-lamps by us. We must all be assailed 



I/O THE HIDDEN LIFE. 

by temptations and by spiritual foes, when vic- 
tory can be gained only if we have reserves 
of strength for resistance to call into action. 
We must stand before tasks which will alto- 
gether baffle our ability, if we have been work- 
ing up to our best in the common duties of 
the common days, and have capacity in us for 
nothing better. " If thou hast run with the 
footmen, and they have wearied thee, then 
how canst thou contend with horses ? and 
if in the land of peace, wherein thou trust- 
edst, they wearied thee, then how wilt thou 
do in the swelling of Jordan ? ** 

It is not enough, however, to forecast trials 
and emergencies ; we must consider how we 
may provide against them, how we may meet 
them without being overmastered by them. 
The shipbuilder calculates the force of wind 
and wave, and puts into his vessel, which he 
builds in the quiet sunshine, strength enough 
to withstand the wildest fury of the ocean. 
He does this by storing iron, steel, and wood 
in the keel until it is staunch and strong, 
and ready to outride any gale. 



THE VALUE OF THE RESERVE, I /I 

It is easy enough to do this in the build- 
ing of a ship. But how can we store in our 
character the reserve that shall enable us to 
meet the stern emergencies of life, and be 
victorious in them? Our Lord's parable of the 
lamps and the oil helps us to an answer. 
The foolish virgins were left in darkness at 
the moment of need because they had but 
their little lampful of oil — enough to burn 
only an hour, with no vessel of oil in reserve 
from which to refill the little cup. We must 
have something besides human nature, even 
at its best, if we would be ready for all that 
lies before us. We must get our little lives 
attached to God's great life in such a way 
that we can draw from his fulness in every 
time of need. Our own lamps will burn only 
for an hour, and if we have but our own 
heartful of life we shall be left in darkness 
at the midnight hour. But if we have the 
divine Spirit to renew our exhausted strength 
at the moment of need, the light will never 
go out, even in the darkest and longest of 
earth's nights. 



172 THE HIDDEN LIFE. 

There are special ways, also, in which we can 
build into our character the reserve needed 
for life's crises. One way is, by the constant 
reading and pondering of God's word. One 
who knows the Scriptures, who has the sacred 
words hidden in his heart, is ready for trial 
and temptation. It may not seem worth while 
to store away in heart and memory the words 
of God for trouble and danger, when there 
is neither trouble nor danger impending; but 
there is no other way of providing for these 
experiences. 

A train was sweeping along in the bright 
sunshine, when an attendant passed through 
the cars and lighted the lamps. The passen- 
gers wondered why this should be done at 
midday ; but while they were talking about 
it, asking what it meant, the train plunged 
into a long, dark tunnel. Then all understood 
why the lamps had been lighted back there 
in the sunshine. This providing of light in 
advance prepared for the gloom in the tun- 
nel's deep night. This illustrates what God's 
words stored in the heart do for us wheri 



THE VALUE OF THE RESERVE. I73 

our path suddenly bends into the darkness of 
sorrow. He who in the sunny days has 
not made the divine promises his own, when 
trouble comes has no comforts to sustain him. 
But he who has pondered the holy word, and 
laid up in memory its precious truths and 
assurances, when called to pass through afflic- 
tion has light in his dwelling. 

It is the same in temptation. Our Lord, 
when he was tempted, repelled Satan's assaults 
with sword-words of Scripture. **It is written,'* 
was his answer in each temptation. But he 
did not there and then have to take out his 
Bible, and look up the texts he wanted, and 
read them to the tempter. He had them in 
his memory ; he had hidden the holy words 
in his heart in the quiet days at Nazareth, 
and now had only to recall them at his hour 
of need. 

We must all meet temptation ; and usually it 
comes suddenly, so that if we cannot instantly 
repel it, we shall be foiled. There is nothing 
like texts of Scripture to drive away the 
tempter ; and if we have our quiver full of 



174 "THE HIDDEN LIFE 

these piercing darts, ready to draw out on a 
moment's notice to hurl at our enemy, we need 
never fail. To have such reserve ready for 
the crises of sorrow and temptation, we need 
to begin in our earliest days to store away in 
heart and memory the words of God. 

Another way of preparing reserve for life's 
emergencies is by prayer. Those who daily 
commune with God, breathe his life into their 
soul, become strong with that secret, hidden 
strength which preserves them from falling in 
the days of trial. Prayer gathers God's ©wn 
strength into the soul, and builds divinity itself 
into the character. 

Then, holy habits of living also store away 
reserves of strength which make one secure 
from the pressure of life's trials. One whose 
daily life is careless, is always weak ; but one 
who habitually serves God and walks in the 
paths of uprightness and obedience, grows 
strong in the fountains of his being. Ex- 
ercise develops all the powers of life. Self- 
discipline knits thews like iron cords. Doing 
good continually adds to one's capacity for 



THE VALUE OF THE RESERVE, 1 75 

doing good. Victory in temptation puts new 
fibre into the victor's arm. Thus he who 
forms habits of well-doing is continually piling 
away in his soul reserves of strength by which 
he will be ready to meet the sudden shocks of 
danger or trial, or the unexpected demands of 
duty. 

From all this we learn the importance of 
beginning in childhood and youth to prepare 
for the life that is to be victorious and noble. 
Wasted early years leave life depleted of its 
power for resisting evil, and for accomplish- 
ing anything worthy in the days of its prime. 
Early years, lived near to God, fed upon God's 
word, nourished by prayer, and passed in holy 
living, make a life ready for any emergency, 
and for victory in any conflict. Every to-day's 
worthy living prepares us for a nobler to- 
morrow, 

" Never a day is given 

But it tones the after years, 
And it carries up to heaven 

Its sunshine or its tears ; 
While the to-morrows stand and wait — 
The silent mutes by the outer gate." 



CHAPTER XVL 

THE BLESSING OF A THORN. 

Joy is but sorrow 

While we know 
It ends to-morrow ; 

Even so ! 
Joy with lifted veil 
Shows a face as pale 
As the fair changing moon so fair and frail. 

Pain is but pleasure 

If we know 
It heaps up treasure; 
Even so! 
. Turn, transfigured Pain ; 
Sweetheart, turn again. 
For fair art thou as moonrise after rain. 

Christina G. Rossetti. 

It is an old story, but it is worth retelling 
many times for its rich lessons. St. Paul had 
some serious malady which caused him a great 
deal of suffering, and seemed to unfit him for 
duty. We need not trouble ourselves to guess 
what it was. He calls it a ** thorn in the 

176 



THE BLESSING OF A THORN. 1 7/ 

flesh/' He asked the Lord to remove it, but 
the request was not granted. 

We might stop just here, and call it an un- 
answered prayer. But there is something else 
in the story which we must not overlook. It 
really was not an unanswered prayer. We 
learn that this thorn had a mission. It seems 
that originally it was a messenger of Satan. 
Just what Satan's connection with it was we 
are not told. Satan's intention was to buffet 
Christ's servant, to annoy him, to give him 
pain, to lessen his influence and usefulness. 
But this messenger of Satan is seized by Christ, 
and transformed into a minister of good and 
blessing. 

That is what Christ would do with all the 
evils that come into our lives. He would not 
only prevent them from working harm to us, 
but he would compel them to do us good. 
Temptation comes to us as a messenger of 
Satan to entice us to sin. If we yield to it, it 
leaves us broken and defeated, lying in the dust 
of shame, our soul hurt. But if we resist it 
and overcome it, not only can no harm come 



178 THE HIDDEN LIFE, 

to US, but we have snatched a blessing from 
the hand of our foe. The victorious encounter 
has made us stronger, and the experience of 
temptation has enriched our life. 

Sorrow also is evil in itself. Left to work 
out its natural effects in a life, it would dim 
the soul's lustre, and quench its joy. But 
Christ takes sorrow, and transforms it into a 
messenger of grace. When we get home, we 
shall see that we owe many of the best things 
in our life to the ministry of suffering. 

There is not a hardness of any kind that 
comes into our life that may not be thus trans- 
formed into good. Difficulties are laid in our 
path, not for stumbling-stones, but for step- 
ping-stones. Thwartings and hindrances are 
not intended to check our progress, but to put 
more strength into our life. Botanists tell us 
that the fruits on a tree are arrested growths. 
They would naturally develop into new twigs 
and branches, but the progress is checked in 
some way, and the growths are stunted. Yet 
the tree does not allow them to be failures ; it 
turns its thwarted developments into some- 



THE BLESSING OF A THORN, 1 79 

thing even better than its first hopes. So it 
may be with thwarted hopes and plans in 
human life ; they may become rich fruits in 
the character. That is what the grace of God 
is ready to make of them. There is no mes- 
senger of Satan that may not be transformed 
into a minister of blessing. 

The reason St. Paul's prayer was not di- 
rectly answered and his thorn removed, was 
because he needed the thorn. He could not 
have spared it without sore loss. He would 
have grown proud if the torturing trouble had 
been taken away. No doubt there is in this 
fragment of spiritual biography a suggestion of 
the reason of many unanswered prayers. The 
things we beseech God to give us, and which 
we think would add so much to our comfort 
and good, would not be blessings. The thing 
we ask God to take away, which we think 
hinders us so much in our usefulness, really 
is something that we need. Paul had not 
thought of his thorn as a blessing, nor had it 
ever occurred to him that he could not spare it. 
He had thought of it only as a weighty encum- 



l8o THE HIDDEN LIFE, 

brance, which it were well for him to get rid of 
as speedily as possible. 

We are not accustomed either to think of 
our thorn as something we could not part with 
without loss or peril. We are not accustomed 
to thank God for the burdening, torturing 
trouble which causes so much pain. We do 
not dream that in any sense it is a good for 
which we ought to be grateful. Yet if we 
could see into our own inner life, no doubt we 
should find that it is one of our best blessings. 
There is a marginal Bible reading that tells us 
that our burden is a gift of God to us. This is 
very interesting. It is a new and most inspir- 
ing revelation to the Christian, when he learns 
for the first time that the load under which 
he is bowing is his Father's gift. When we re- 
member who God is, how gracious and kind he 
is always, we cannot doubt that his gift must 
be good, whatever it is. It may be suffering, 
it may be a heavy cross of care, it may be a 
bodily defect or infirmity. It may be a burden 
that we are carrying from love, the burden of 
some other one's broken life. It may be a 



THE BLESSING OF A THORN. l8l 

burden of sickness, of pain, of loss, of sorrow. 
Whatever it is, our burden is God's gift. 

When we think of it in this way, how the 
heaviest burden is changed before us ! That 
which an hour ago seemed so oppressive in 
its weight, so unlovely in its form and fea- 
tures, is hallowed and transformed. We had 
thought it an evil ; but now it appears as an- 
other of God*s blessings, its mission being to 
advance our good. Far more than most of us 
are aware are we indebted to our burden, our 
thorn, for many of the best things in our 
life. It is that by which we have grown into 
our greatest measures of strength. 

No wonder, then, that, when we cry to God 
for the taking away of what seem to us hin- 
drances, but really are helps, he does not heed 
our requests. He is better to us than our 
own desires. To answer as we wish would 
be to rob us of blessings we could not afford 
to lose. 

But there is more of the lesson. While 
God did not grant St. PauFs prayer for the 
removal of his thorn, he gave him a better 



1 82 THE HIDDEN LIFE. 

answer than he sought. It is no part of 
God's plan for us to make our life easy. 
That is what human love usually seeks to do. 
We think we must save our friends from 
every hardship, if it is possible for us to do so. 
If they are in trouble or distress, we would 
instantly deliver them if we could. Our kind- 
ness directs its efforts toward the ameliora- 
tion of all suffering. We hasten to take away 
the burden that presses on our friend. We 
think love requires this. 

But that is not God's way. To his loving 
thought there is something better than deliver- 
ing us from pain ; the peaceable fruits of sanc- 
tified pain are better. There is something that 
he desires for us more than the easing of our 
life by the lifting away of our burden; it is 
that we should grow strong under our burden, 
grow strong through bearing it. Hence the 
promise is not that God will lift off the bur- 
den that we cast upon him, but that he will 
sustain us in carrying it. 

That is precisely what the Lord did in the 
case of St. Paul. The burden was not taken 



THE BLESSING OF A THORN. 1 83 

away, — it was not best that it should be; that 
was not the truest way to give help. St. Paul 
needed the thorn to save him from being ex- 
alted overmuch, to keep him conscious of his 
earthliness. Yet the prayer did not go un- 
answered. Instead of the removal of the 
trouble came the promise, " My grace is suffi- 
cient for thee : for my strength is made perfect 
in weakness.'* 

Few things are more discouraging than 
weakness. It is humiliating, disheartening. 
It stands in the way of our doing what we 
are eager to do. It hampers us in our running 
the race of life, compelling us to fall behind 
our competitors. It prevents us doing the 
things we want to do. It seems to paralyze 
us when we think of carrying it about with us 
day after day, year after year. We think of 
weakness as an unrelieved misfortune. But 
here is a wonderful secret ; weakness, if given 
to Christ, is filled by him with his own strength, 
and thus becomes mighty, invincible. 

The blessing of a thorn is the blessing of 
weakness. We have more of Christ because 



1 84 THE HIDDEN LIFE, 

of our infirmity. Weakness is dear and en- 
dearing to the heart of Christ, and thus draws 
to itself more of his help than strength does. 
Weakness without Christ is pitiable indeed ; 
but weakness with Christ is unconquerable, for 
it receives for itself the divine strength. 

These are hints of the blessing that may 
be in a thorn. It may become a blossoming 
tree, bearing fruit for our hunger and the 
world's, instead of a sharp thorn, piercing our 
flesh, and wounding and hurting us. Jesus 
himself wore a crown of thorns, and since 
then his grace can change human pain into 
blessing. 

To get the blessing from our thorn we need 
only to be in Christ, dwelling close to him, 
intrusting all our life to him. We cannot our- 
selves extract good from evil, or compel our 
troubles to yield benedictions, or change sharp 
thorns into beauteous roses. No hand but 
Christ's can work these marvellous transfor- 
mations for us. But if, with simple faith and 
unquestioning confidence, we lay all the hard 
things into the hands that bear the print of the 



THE BLESSING OF A THORN. 1 85 

nails, we shall be comforted, and shall get good 
out of all that seems evil. One writes : — 

If I might kneel 

Where Jesus' smile could courage give ; 

If I sometimes might feel 

His hand in comfort on my head, 

And hear him say : **My little child, 

I know it all ; I still will heal 

Each wound ; be of good cheer." 

If I close to his side might stand, 

And kiss the bruised feet, 

And know he knew it first, and loves me still, — 

Perhaps, then in Gethsemane, 

I might make song above my prayer. 

And feel his face bending to see 

My need, and clasp my faltering hand. 

And guide to the white gate, and say, perhaps : 

**Well done! This is thy Father's house, 

Where many mansions be." 

Perhaps, all spent with carrying weight 

In life's sojourn, 

Give humble faith unto his will, 

And say, in prayer : **Thou knowest best. 

Thy will be done. 

So I thy presence earn." 



CHAPTER XVII. 

NEAR THE HEART OF CHRIST. 

Many soul longings 
Have I had in my day. 
Now the hope of my life 
Is that tree of triumph, 
Ever to turn to. 
Mighty my will is 
To cleave to the Crucified: 
My claim for shelter 
Is — right to the Rood. 

C^dmon's Cross Lay. 

Some one wrote of Whittier, "To live near 
the heart of Christ was his creed." This 
should be the creed of every Christian. It is 
to such a life of intimacy with him that Jesus 
invites all of his friends. ** Continue ye in 
my love," was his exhortation. That is more 
than coming now and then, for an hour, into 
the warmth of his love. Perhaps most Chris- 
tians do little more than this. They try to 
get into the love of Christ for a few moments 

i86 



NEAR THE HEART OF CHRIST. 1 8/ 

in the morning, before they go out into the 
world's chill air. In the evening, too, when 
the day's toils, tasks, and struggles are over, 
they creep back into the love of Christ for a 
benediction, as they confess faults, failures, 
and sins, and ask for forgiveness. They like 
to be folded near the heart of Christ during 
the night. It is a safe place to be through 
the dark hours. 

Then they try to come into the love of 
Christ on Sundays, when they meet with 
God's people for prayer. Especially at the 
Lord's Table do they feel that they are in the 
warmth and tenderness of the love of Christ, 
when they receive the emblems of the su- 
preme act of that love. These moments and 
hours of nesting near the heart of Jesus are 
very precious. They are full of blessing. 
They exalt these lives of ours, and give us 
visions of heavenly glory. 

But there is something better than this 
possible to the believer in Christ. To con- 
tinue in the love of Christ is to dwell all the 
while, without break, without interruption, in 



1 88 THE HIDDEN LIFE. 

this love. In the Revised Version, the word 
is ** abide '' — " Abide ye in my love." To 
abide is to make one's home in the place ; 
we are to make our home in the love of 
Christ. Not only in the morning hour of 
prayer, when we are seeking blessing for the 
day, are we to linger in this warmth, but 
just as really are we to stay in it when we 
go out into the midst of the world's strifes 
and duties. 

Work is not incompatible with communion 
with Christ. Duty does not disturb the glow 
of true religion. If only our heart be right 
and our life sincere, we may abide in the 
love of Christ just as really when wc are 
busy with our common tasks and toils, as 
when we are bending over our Bible, or kneel- 
ing in prayer, or receiving the Lord's Supper. 

Jesus said, ** If ye keep my commandments, 
ye shall abide in my love ; even as I have kept 
my Father's commandments, and abide in his 
love." It is a wonderful measure of nearness 
that is thus made possible to us, — we shall 
abide in Christ's love, even as he abides in his 



NEAR THE HEART OF CHRIST. 1 89 

Father's love. It seems almost incredible that 
such intimacy, such closeness, as that which 
existed between Christ and his Father, should 
be possible to us. Yet it is nothing less than 
this that is promised. 

Then the way we can attain this unbroken 
abiding is also made very plain : ** If ye keep 
my commandments, ye shall abide in my love.'* 
We do not secure this nearness to the heart 
of Christ by staying always on our knees in 
prayer, by reading our Bible all the day, or 
by living in a monastery, hidden away from 
the world, devoting all our time to prayer and 
devotion; we secure it by obeying Christ's 
commandments. The work we are called to 
do will not break the holy communion. Indeed, 
there are times when we can abide in the love 
of Christ only by earnestly engaging in active 
service. The mother must leave her closet of 
prayer to care for the teaching and training of 
her children, and for her many household tasks. 
The Christian man would not be staying near 
the heart of Christ if he were to spend his 
days in reading his Bible and in prayer, to 



I go THE HIDDEN LIFE, 

the neglect of his business and his public 
duties. 

There is need for a hidden life of devotion, 
to keep the heart warm and full of heavenly 
inspirations ; but the real abiding in Christ 
is in the field. We are ordained, not to be 
closet-saints, but to bear fruit, to do our part 
in the busy world's work, to stand for God 
among men. We can abide in the love of 
Christ only by keeping his commandments ; 
and these bid us forth to duty, to activity, to 
self-denial, to sacrifice. Jesus did not spend 
all his time on the mountain top, or in the 
garden, in communion with his Father. He 
went to these holy resorts to receive strength, 
to renew his wasted energies ; but the larger 
part of his life was given up to duty, to min- 
istering among the people, to witnessing for 
his Father before men. If we fail to keep 
the commandments that call us to work, we 
shall break the fellowship which is the mark 
of living near the heart of Christ. 

Meeting temptation, carrying burdens, fa- 
cing dangers, mingling with people and min- 



NEAR THE HEART OF CHRIST I9I 

istering to them, — none of these experiences 
or duties will interfere with true closeness to 
Christ, if meanwhile we are living obediently. 
Nothing will interrupt this communion and 
hide the light of the love of Christ, but sin. 
Sin is the only undivine thing in this world, 
and only sin can hinder our living near the 
heart of Christ. 

The word abide suggests a home. It is in- 
teresting to think of the love of Christ as our 
true home. We know what a shelter a happy 
home is. We flee there from the world's 
strifes and temptations, and find safety. No 
enemy can follow us through the door. The 
love of Christ is a refuge, a place of shelter. 
There is something very sacred in the thought 
of the old hymn which speaks of Christ as a 
great rock, — '* Rock of Ages, cleft for me.'' 
We abide in Christ's very heart. 

But home is more than shelter ; it is also a 
place of communion. There hearts are sure of 
each other. There love flows. To abide in 
the love of Christ is to stay in its light and 
warmth as one dwells in a happy home. For 



192 THE HIDDEN LIFE. 

continuing in the love of Christ does not mean 
to continue loving Christ, but to continue in 
the consciousness of being loved by Christ, to 
stay where the blessedness of that love shall 
ever stream about us. We know what it is to 
abide in human love. It is to live in such per- 
fect, unhindered relations with one who is dear 
to us that nothing ever intercepts the flow of 
light and joy from his heart. There is no mis- 
understanding, no estrangement in feeling or 
affection, no disturbing of confidence. We 
continue in our friend's love. To abide in 
Christ's love is to live so that there shall never 
be even a shadow between his face and our 
heart. That is what it is to have the heart of 
Christ for our soul's home. The communion 
is unbroken. 

There is no other spiritual culture like that 
which comes from such abiding in the love of 
Christ. Companionship with noble natures is 
always wondrously refining. A pure friendship 
with one of lofty spirit is most enriching in its 
influence upon our life. ** I had a friend/' 
was given as the secret of a transformation 



NEAR THE HEART OF CHRIST 1 93 

of character which attracted many eyes. But 
there is no friendship that so exalts and en- 
nobles a life as that of Christ. To abide in his 
love is to let that love enter the heart and 
permeate the whole being. 

We have the story of St. John as an illustra- 
tion of what living near the heart of Christ will 
do for a man of common mould. There are 
indications that John was not at first the dis- 
ciple of gentle love whom we know in later life. 
He was of fiery and resentful mood, a son of 
thunder. But one happy day he followed Je- 
sus, and was invited to his dwelling-place for 
a long talk. From that time he continued to 
live near Christ's heart of love. He seems to 
have entered more deeply into fellowship with 
his Master than any other one of the disciples. 
Abiding in the warmth of that blessed love, 
he absorbed its sweetness into his own soul, 
and was transformed into the same spirit. 

It is interesting to notice that John spoke 
of himself, not as the disciple who loved Jesus, 
but as the disciple whom Jesus loved. It was 
not his loving of Christ that wrought the won- 



194 THE HIDDEN LIFE. 

derful change in him, but Christ's loving of 
him. It was as when a diamond lies in the 
sunshine until the sunshine enters into it, and 
then in the darkness shines, emitting the soft 
light which had hidden away in it while it was 
lying in the sun's beams. John dwelt in the 
love of Christ until his own nature was filled 
with Christ's love; then those who saw him 
saw the shining of Christ's beauty in his 
face. 

It was the same in greater or less measure 
with all the friends of Christ. Mary sat at 
his feet and heard his words, abiding in his 
love, and her life became wondrously beautiful. 
St. Peter, when he came first to Jesus, was an 
unspiritual man, unrefined, with undisciplined 
nature. Jesus looked into his heart, and seeing 
there the possibilities of fine character and 
great strength, said to him, '* Thou art Simon ; 
thou shalt be Peter." It was not easy to make 
an ideal Christian man of Simon ; but he, too, 
stayed near the heart of the Master, abiding 
in his love, and in that place of softening, 
mellowing power, as in a divine alembic, his 



NEAR THE HEART OF CHRIST 1 95 

coarse, rugged nature was changed into a gen- 
tleness, a sweetness, and a beauty which made 
his one of the most influential personalities 
of all Christian history. 

So it has been through all the centuries. 
Personal friendship with Jesus has been mak- 
ing the world over again. Men and women 
have been abiding in the love of Christ, with 
more or less closeness ; and the love of that 
heart has entered into them and made them 
Christians. 

Not all Christians, however, are staying 
near to that infinite source of all spiritual 
life and power. Some are living afar off ; the 
multitude seek no special closeness to the Mas- 
ter, are satisfied with a very ordinary fellow- 
ship ; only the few long for that abiding in 
which John was so wondrously blessed. 

If we keep ourselves in the love of Christ 
continually, we shall be led into closer and 
ever closer fellowship with him ; and then what 
our friends call the end, when they stand by 
us at the last, will be but passing through 
the veil into the perfect communion. 



196 THE HIDDEN LIFE. 

*' What if, mind and thought decayed, 
Old, I lose thee from my ken. 
Thou chiefest of the sons of men, 
And thy worth from memory fade ; 
O most loving Lord ! what then ? 

Nay, but thou wilt not forget ; 

In thy memory lives my boast ; 

On the everlasting coast 
Thou wilt meet and own me yet, 

To the end and uttermost.'* 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

THE LIFE THAT NOW IS. 

" Somewhere the wind is blowing, 

I thought as I toiled along 
In the burning heat of the noontide, 

And the fancy made me strong. 
Yes, somewhere the wind is blowing, 

Though here where I gasp and sigh, 
Not a breath of air is stirring. 

Not a cloud in the burning sky. 

Somewhere the thing we long for 

Exists on earth's wide bound; 
Somewhere the sun is shining 

When winter nips the ground. 
Somewhere the flowers are springing, 

Somewhere the corn is brown, 
And ready unto the harvest 

To feed the hungry town." 

There is an impression among certain peo- 
ple that the advantages of Christian faith are 
only or chiefly for the other world. They 
will admit that religion is a good thing for 
dying — that it takes one safely through the 

valley of shadows, and into the Father's house 

197 



198 THE HIDDEN LIFE. 

in heaven. But they say that for the pres- 
ent life it yields no profit, that, indeed, it 
hinders one's pleasure, and stands in the way 
of one's success and prosperity. 

But these are incorrect impressions. We 
do not have to wait till we reach heaven to 
get the benefits of faith in Christ. Religion 
has **the promise of the life that now is," as 
well as of **that which is to come." God bcr 
stows rich spiritual blessings and comforts 
upon us in this present life. While fountains 
of eternal blessedness burst out on the moun- 
tains of God in glory, rills and rivers of grace 
flow also through our poor, parched, sorrow- 
smitten earthly portion, fertilizing and enrich- 
ing it. Religion has uncounted benefits for 
the life of earth. 

There are those who think that the Chris- 
tian's life is cheerless and gloomy, empty of 
happiness and joy. But is it so 1 Let us 
think of some of the good things that reli- 
gion brings. It brings the revelation of the 
love of God. Is it a gloomy thought to a 
man that God loves him, loves him with an 



THE LIFE THAT NOW IS, I99 

everlasting love, with a love infinitely deepdr 
and more tender than a mother's love, with 
a love that never changes, and whose warm 
currents no unfaithfulness, no wandering, no 
imperfection, can chill or turn back? Reli- 
gion brings redemption. Is it a gloomy thing 
to a weary prisoner to go out of his dark 
dungeon, and find himself in the open fields, 
in the sweet sunshine, enjoying all the bless- 
ings of liberty ? Does it make a man sad, 
does it darken his life, to be led out of 
Satan's gloomy prison-house into the glorious 
liberty of the children of God ? Religion 
brings full salvation. Is it a gloomy thought 
to know that you are saved from eternal 
death, and have everlasting life.** 

Religion brings peace. In the midst of a 
great battle, while a thousand cannon shook 
the hills, and the whole heaven quivered with 
the reverberations, there was a moment's 
pause. Not a gun was heard, far or near. 
During that pause a sparrow sang sweetly 
out from among the branches of an old tree 
that stood in the midst of the plain of battle. 



200 THE HIDDEN LIFE. 

When the cannon thundered again the spar- 
row was silent. It sang only in the brief 
pauses of the awful strife. So it is with the 
peace of this world. Now and then we hear 
a single voice singing sweetly out of a man's 
life, in the brief pauses of struggle, care, and 
discontent. But soon the strife begins again, 
and the bird-note of peace is hushed. No 
worldly man has unbroken peace. Only a 
single silver strain is heard now and then. 
There is only a brief moment of calm here 
and there, in the midst of a life of anxiety, 
unrest, and discord. 

But religion brings deep peace, the peace 
of the Lord Jesus, a peace which is not broken 
by any storm, which sings in the bosom ; 
not merely a single voice in the pauses of 
earth's battle, but a whole choir of voices, 
unceasing through all the din and strife. 

Here is a little cottage by the sea. The 
night is dark and stormy. The waves break 
and thunder on the shore. The clouds pour 
out their rains in angry torrents. The tem- 
pest beats and roars about the cottage. But 



THE LIFE THAT NOW IS, 20I 

all the evening there is joy within. The lamp 
burns with bright beam. The cheerful fire 
glows upon the hearth. A happy circle gathers 
about the table. Joyful songs ring out into 
the gloom. The dark night of storm flings 
no shadow inside. The angry tempest breaks 
not the gladness of that sweet home. 

Picture this of the peace religion brings. 
The world is full of storms, but the Chris- 
tian's heart is a chamber of cheer and joy 
through all. Songs ring out in the blackest 
night of trial. Job had this peace, and it 
was not broken by all his adversities. St. 
Paul had it ; and he went singing through the 
world in all his tribulations, persecutions, and 
trials. Here is an aged Christian woman who 
has it. She is poor. She is a great sufferer. 
Every joint in her body is drawn out of its 
place. For thirteen years she has endured 
the most excruciating pains, without an hour's 
relief. But no little child on its mother's 
bosom has a deeper, sweeter joy than she. 
She knows that she is God's child, that he 
is caring for her, and that he is fitting her in 



202 THE HIDDEN LIFE. 

her sufferings for eternal glory. She knows 
that all she has to endure the Lord sends in 
tender love. The cross of Jesus sweetens all 
the bitterness of her life. Does such blessed 
peace make one gloomy } Does it make life 
cheerless and sad "i 

Religion reveals a loving Providence run- 
ning through the Christian's life, weaving out 
of all its tangled threads a web of beauty. 
It shows a Father's hand in each event, taking 
the poison out of trouble, drawing the serpent- 
tooth out of every evil thing, bringing good 
out of all experiences, sheltering, guiding, and 
blessing his children. Is the thought of such 
a loving, overruling Providence a saddening 
or gloomy one t 

There are sorrows in the Christian's life. 
Religion does not save us from suffering. 
But while sorrows, like hot, desert winds, 
desolate the life of the worldly man, they 
fertilize, enrich, and bless the portion of the 
child of God; for with his *^ south land," God 
has given him springs of comfort whose streams 
flow through every valley of tribulation. Are 



THE LIFE THAT NOW IS. 203 

the consolations of religion calculated to make 
men sad, or life cheerless and gloomy? 

There is no other such joyous life in this 
world as that of the believer. Springs of 
heavenly blessing burst out all over his field. 
It has not a single desert spot. It matters 
not how small it may be ; the Christian's little 
cottage and garden are better than the worldly 
man's thousand acres. The poor widow's one 
garret-room is better than the gorgeous palace 
of him whose splendors are not blessed by the 
smile of God. 

We cannot even name all the blessings 
which religion sends into our life through its 
"nether springs." It changes a desert into 
a garden. It pours sunshine into our heart. 
It enriches our poverty. It makes our hard 
crust soft and sweet as angels' bread. It 
surrounds us with beautiful things. It fills 
our life with tokens of divine love. It sings 
to us in our weary hours. It cheers us when 
we are disheartened. It takes the anxiety, 
fear, and unrest out of our days. For it makes 
us children of God. What matters it that 



204 THE HIDDEN LIFE. 

this experience here is sometimes bitter, that 
burdens are heavy, that work is hard ; that you 
get no rest from toil ; that night and day your 
poor, tired fingers must ply the needle, or be 
busy in household duties ; that there come 
no pauses in your weary task-work? What 
matters it that your heart's song is hushed 
every now and then by the cry of grief, or 
choked by tears ? What matters it that you 
are poor, that your clothes are threadbare, 
that sometimes you have only a piece of crust 
and a cup of water ? The Lord knows what 
things you need. Or what matters it that 
your earthly portion is so small and so poor, 
while you are but a pilgrim here, while heaven 
is your home, while you know that you are 
an heir of God, and that you have a glorious 
possession laid up in reserve? 

There was a godly man who built himself 
a house. It was a pleasant home, with many 
comforts. There was joy in it. But he said 
that the best thing about this home was that, 
sitting at his own fireside, he could see his 
father's house away on a distant hill-top. "• Nq 



THE LIFE THAT NOW IS. 20$ 

matter the weather/* said he, *' whether winter 
or summer, spring or autumn ; no matter the 
sky, whether cloudless or stormy, — when I sit 
by my east window, my father's roof and 
chimney-tops, and the door into my father's 
house, are always visible to my sight. Then, 
when night comes, no matter the darkness, 
for far away over the fields and valleys gleams 
the light in my father's windows." Happy 
is he who builds his earthly dwelling where 
from its doors he can ever see afar off his 
heavenly Father's house with its many man- 
sions ; and where, even in the darkest nights, 
its lights shine down upon him with their 
kindly cheer. He will then never be lonely 
nor afraid. He will never lose hope. He 
will breathe heaven's sweetness, and catch the 
accents of heaven's songs, and his eye will 
be charmed with glimpses of heaven's beauties. 
Let no one say that religion makes life 
gloomy. However dreary the Christian's 
earthly lot may be, hidden springs burst up 
all over it. There is no sorrow which has 
not in it a hidden well of comfort. There is 



206 THE HIDDEN LIFE. 

no want up through whose dry crust blessed 
supply will not burst, if we but dig for it. 
In the West, on the broad prairies, the trav- 
eller sees ofttimes the tall derrick looming up 
like a ghastly skeleton in the distance. It 
tells a story of disappointment and vain search. 
Here men dug and drilled for water. They 
spent a fortune on this spot, hoping to strike 
a living spring. They went down a thou- 
sand feet or more, and found nothing. But 
there is no such vain search in the believer's 
field for wells of blessing. The worldly man 
may dig down ten thousand feet in his por- 
tion. He may find gold and silver. He may 
find diamonds. But he will not find water. 
Ghastly derricks stand all over the broad fields 
of many an unbelieving one, showing where 
he has sought for joy, for peace, for satisfac- 
tion, for comfort, — yet all in vain. But the 
child of God may strike his pick in anywhere, 
and fresh water will flow out. Every spot of 
his portion is blessed and full of blessing. 
Every circumstance is a well-curb, fencing in 
its flowing spring. He has only to drop the 



THE LIFE THAT NOW IS. 20/ 

bucket of faith anywhere to draw up heav- 
enly gladness, comfort, and good. The deep 
furrows that sorrow ploughs in his life are 
only channels through which the pure waters 
flow to irrigate his field and enrich his heart. 
The heavy strokes of trial which he feels so 
often, and which give him so much pain, are 
but the smitings of the rod of God, to bring 
out water from the rock. These nether springs 
burst out all over the believer's field. 

Indeed, the believer in Christ is living even 
now and here on the borders of heaven. The 
veil of sense hides the glory, but the glory 
is there. We are children of God, and are 
living in our Father's world. The love that 
surrounds us now and cares for us is the same 
love that makes heaven. We are really as 
safe here, if we trust God and do his will, as 
we will be when we get home. We are in 
the beginnings of everlasting life, though yet 
in the flesh. It is not always easy to live 
the Christian life in this world ; but the suf- 
ferings of this present time are preparing us 
for the glory of the coming days. By and by 



208 THE HIDDEN LIFE. 

this life of toil will be over, and then we shall 
enter into the full blessedness. 

*'A little while and then the summer day, 

When I go home. 
'Tis lonesome winter now, but 'twill be May 

When I go home. 
Beyond the gloom of moor and fen I see 
The welcome warm of those who wait for me. 

Work ceases not in sunshine or in shower, 

Till I go home ; 
But in the stillness of the twilight hour 

I dream of home. 
And when the night-wind moans across the wold, 
I feel nor dread of dark nor chill of cold. 

All will be well and all be happiness 

When I go home ; 
The wanderings all o'er and loneliness, 

When I go home. 
There will be light at eventide for me, 
The light that never was on land or sea.'* 



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